HONOURING THE GIVERS AT COMCHEST AWARDS CEREMONY

Nine-year-old Cheyenne Phua has never seen the light of day.

But her life has been made brighter, thanks to generous donors of the Community Chest (ComChest).

Born with bilateral opaque corneas which affect her vision, Cheyenne studies at a special school supported by ComChest.

At the ComChest awards ceremony held at the Istana on 14 Oct, she expressed her gratitude to more than a hundred award recipients.

She said: "Now I can read and write using Braille. I enjoy going to school and learning something new every day. I hope to go on to study in a mainstream secondary school.

"I am proud to be here to represent more than 330,000 beneficiaries whom you have helped. You have truly made a difference with your generosity and big-heartedness."

At the awards ceremony, President of the National Council of Social Service Rear-Admiral (RADM) (Ret) Kwek Siew Jin said: "This award ceremony is an important occasion for us to acknowledge and express our gratitude to our key partners who have helped the Community Chest raise the funds needed to support 157 social service programmes provided by 70 charities."

Explaining that a quarter of the funds in ComChest are contributed through SHARE, a monthly workplace giving programme started in 1984, he noted that funds raised through SHARE this year totalled $6.9 million. This was a 13 percent increase from last year's amount.

In his speech, he also made special mention of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and the Singapore Police Force (SPF) for being stalwart supporters of the SHARE programme for the past 25 years. Both are currently the top two SHARE contributors from the uniformed groups.

One of the SAF award recipients was Military Expert (ME) 5 Philip Tng, who represented the SAF Band to receive the 10-year Outstanding SHARE Award from President S R Nathan. Mr Nathan is the Patron-in-Chief of the National Council of Social Service.

For the past 10 years, the SAF Band has been awarded the SHARE Gold Award for achieving an employee participation rate of between 70 percent and 89 percent of their staff strength.

In addition to contributing to the SHARE programme, the SAF Band has been holding charity concerts annually or once in two years since 2003 to raise funds for the annual President's Challenge charity campaign.

For example, the SAF band members raised more than $100,000 in a joint charity concert with the SPF Band last year.

"Playing music is our forte, so we thought it's the best way to contribute to the less fortunate," explained ME5 Tng, who is the Senior Director of Music in the SAF Band.

"The charity concerts can either be for fund-raising, or it could be for inviting the less fortunate from shelters and homes to a free concert."

He added: "The whole idea is not just to give money, but also to brighten up their day."

Among the 119 awards presented at the ceremony, the SAF received 23 SHARE Platinum Awards, one 20-year Outstanding SHARE Award, two 10-year Outstanding SHARE Awards, and five Five-year Outstanding SHARE Awards.