By Dawn Tan

NEVER underestimate the power of youth.

Since June, Secondary 4 students Elise Tan, Wong Lai Weng, Ester Cheang and Phang Chew Fei have spent their weekends selling apples and hand-made greeting cards on the streets - and raised $35,000 for charity as well.

But they are not satisfied, as they aim to hit $50,000.

The money raised by the girls will go towards their chosen non-profit children's organisation, Child At Street 11, which helps provide education to children from dysfunctional and low-income families.

Their team - Save-ven'08 - is one of the 100 teams in Citibank- YMCA Youth For Causes, a programme encouraging social entrepreneurship in young people aged 15 to 35.

Aside from $5,000 in seed funds from Citibank-YMCA and $3,000 of private donations from their families, the rest of the money was raised through public donations and the sales of apples and greeting-card packs at $2 each.

The Nanyang Girls' High School students have also mobilised over 800 students from different schools to help their cause.

But the real challenge is approaching busy Singaporeans on the streets, according toMiss Wong. Not content with raising funds, the team also wants to raise public awareness for the small charity.

Said Miss Wong, 16: "It's hard to get the public to stop on the street. Most of the time they just donate without interest in what we have to say."

In this year's Youth For Causes, youths from the 100 teams are aiming to raise $900,000 in total for various non-profit organisations - almost four times the amount from 2003.

And these four girls are living examples of their team's motto, which describes the potential of youth and children.

Said Miss Tan on the team's guiding principle: "You can count how many seeds there are in an apple, but you can't count the number of apples that grow out of a seed."

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