Signature Love Project

Visit Signature Love Project VIII's website

Introduction

Signature Love Project is our only fund-raising event in CSC. Initiated in 2003, SLP makes use of the simple concept of collecting $2. Donors can then pen down their messages on provided materials which will be put on display in the campus after the event. The funds collected are then donated to selected beneficiaries.

In addition, SLP strives to promote interaction between our volunteers and beneficiaries. Through engaging them in meaningful and interactive activities, we endeavour to bring a difference to the lives of the beneficiaries.

Signature Love Project VIII

Signature Love Project VIII (SLP VIII) is the only fundraising project under the NUS Students' Community Service Club where the tagline "$2 for a signature" is used as the basis for raising funds with an aim of raising awareness for the adopted beneficiary as well. Moreover, in order to cultivate compassion and volunteerism among the NUS population, SLP VIII also aimed to have more volunteer-beneficiary interaction throughout the four-month long project.

Living in an ageing society, it is important for the public to be aware of the aged sick. As such, Bright Vision Hospital was adopted as the beneficiary for SLP VIII. Bright Vision Hospital is a voluntary community hospital supported by the Ministry of Health. It is a fully integrated step- down care hospital offering a seamless continuum of holistic and quality care, especially to the needy, the sick, and the elderly regardless of race and religion. Bright Vision Hospital caters mainly to four types of patients. They are the rehabilitative patients, the chronic sick patients, the palliative patients and the nursing home patients. Besides inpatient services, there are also outpatient services such as day rehabilitation and day care services, and other services like pastoral care, which caters to the emotional well-being of the patients.

The theme for SLP VIII was "A smile is just a piece away", which aimed to convey the loneliness and despair experienced by the elderly patients due to their long stay in the hospital to all donors and volunteers, and how simple it was to bring out their smiles again. In addition, we hoped to remind people to express more care and concern for the aged sick.

With these goals and theme in mind, the organizing committee of SLP VIII embarked on a four-month long project which included five interactive visits to Bright Vision Hospital, and the preparation and execution of a 3-day internal drive on NUS campus and a 2-day external drive at Kovan Heartland Mall.


SLP Internal Drive in NUS

Simple handicraft and game sessions held during the visits allowed the patients to exercise their psychomotor skills and at the same time, allowed the organizing committee and volunteers to interact and befriend the patients so as to gain more insights and understanding of the aged sick.

The finale visit was concluded in a mini party where everyone, including the staff at the hospital, helped to bring joy and smiles to the patients through games and songs. We managed to engage an average of 17 patients per visit and a total of 22 volunteers for all our visits, with quite a few enthusiastic volunteers joining us for more than one visit. This is an improvement from last year where only a handful of volunteers were able to be involved in one of the beneficiary visits due to it being an outing and more manpower was needed to execute the activities.

The 3-day internal drive on NUS campus held from 8th to 10th February 2011 managed to reach out to both the student body as well as the staff of NUS. Our booth this year consisted of two pillars flanking a simple banner with the name of our project, with each being made up of four boxes of different colors stacked on top of one another. Numerous yellow smiley balls made up of newspapers and starch were used to decorate the booth and bring out our theme. The signature item for this year was little yellow jigsaw puzzle pieces where donors "signed" their words of encouragement and well wishes for the patients at Bright Vision Hospital for every $2 donated (our tagline). For the internal drive this year, we were able to incorporate a lucky draw to aid us in raising more funds as we had a sponsored 16GB iPod nano. For every $10 donated, donors were entitled a chance to win at our lucky draw. However, it was really heartening to see that donors were genuinely willing to donate because of the patients at the hospital and not purely because of the chance to win at a lucky draw.

For the 2-day external drive held from 19th to 20th February 2011, we were fortunate to have the collaboration of Heartland Retail Holdings Pte Ltd, who kindly sponsored us a space inside Kovan Heartland Mall to hold our fundraising drive. For the external drive this year, we also had a small game booth beside our main booth where the public could play a simple game of completing a small jigsaw puzzle while wearing a pair of spectacles that was meant to affect their eyesight. This was to give the public a feel of one aspect of what the patients at the hospital felt like with their various inabilities. Both the fundraising drives were well received, and with the help of a total of 46 volunteers, we were able to raise a total of $9000 for Bright Vision Hospital during the 5 days of fundraising. The funds collected will go towards helping the patients at the hospital, such as relieving some of their financial burdens and also funding of outings for the patients so as to keep up their spirits.


SLP Internal Drive in Kovan Hearland Mall

Despite the public being cautious about fundraising for a hospital, the great effort put forth by the organizing committee managed to convince them that the patients at Bright Vision Hospital do indeed need our help and compassion. It was also gratifying to see that we were able to educate the public about the aged sick based on the insights and understanding we had gained from the interaction with the patients at the hospital. We hope that through our effort, we had managed to raise public awareness for the aged sick and instil in all a sense of compassion for the less fortunate.

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