|
By Lediati Tan
NINE years ago, I participated in a flag day for my secondary school's community involvement programme.
For five hours, I trawled the streets asking strangers to do their bit for charity.
For my efforts, I received a certificate of appreciation.
But guess what? Next to my name on the certificate was a handwritten remark: 'could collect more next time out'.
My face fell.
It was a certificate of appreciation that I could have done without.
Sure, I didn't fill my donation can.
But I did my best, and I didn't think I had performed so poorly that I deserved the remark.
After all, I had spent a few hours of my own time seeking donations from strangers who either gave me the cold shoulder or a wide berth.
But I grinned and bore it in the hope that some kind souls would whip out their wallets to drop a few coins - or notes, if I was lucky - into my donation tin.
I'm not saying there are no students who go off and spend some of the time as they like and then expect to get their required CIP hours.
But mockery and grading based on the amount collected are not the ways to deal with that.
How can one measure the size of the heart by the weight of a donation can?
Kindness cannot be calibrated like that.
More often than not, the amount of money that volunteers collect depends on their locations, how consistently they approach passers-by, and pure luck.
If, by a stroke of luck, I meet someone who is willing to part with $50, then my collection amount in a few minutes might turn out to be more than what someone else got in hours.
So, whose efforts are more worthy?
And why should young people be more generous with their time when these organisations behave so ungraciously?
Still, the 'black mark' on my certificate did not stop me from continuing to volunteer, and I hope others will not be discouraged from doing the same.
For in my heart, the only yardstick for assessment should be my own conscience.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
| 
