The 4th of September 2021 was an especially joyous time for a group of like-minded individuals from BW Monastery’s Community Care team. Together with volunteers with the youngest at 8 years of age, they took time out of their usual Saturday mornings, spreading Infinite Love & Care, through distributing goodie bags containing essential items for the needy. This effort was possible in collaboration with volunteers from Admiralty CCC and Admiralty Care.

Pre-event planning took place at least 1 month before, where volunteers were involved from planning to packing of items into each goodie bag itself. On d-day, volunteers from the monastery started their joyous activity as early as 7 am in the morning, moving more than 500 sets of the care pack to the particular HDB block off Woodlands in preparation for the distribution. This was to be distributed to 500 families and was by far the largest outreach and engagement effort since the Community Care team was established in Aug 2019. 

Under normal circumstances, the pre-event operational setup would have been a walk in the park, but with the current pandemic, additional processes such as reminding every volunteers to keep their safe distancing, ensuring volunteers kept to their group allocation and taking everyone’s temperature have to be emphasize in order to keep everyone as safe possible.

When asked why he still volunteered his time amidst rising unlinked cases of Covid 19, Mr Kannathasam, in his 50s, who came to know about this event through his friend, mentioned that to be able to do good was more important than the concern with the increase in cases. Moreover, he has also been fully vaccinated. 

Another volunteer Valerie, in her 60s, felt that if the majority avoided reaching out to the less fortunate during this period, then, their situation may worsen further. Hence, she is determined to continue doing her part to help. 

It was also heartening to observe the joy in giving for most of the volunteers. The notion of joyous giving represents the cultivation of the spirit of generosity driven by compassion in the Buddhist tradition whilst for the likes of Mr Kannathasam, he would participate regardless of which faith group’s organization of the event as the key lies in sharing the common good within the community.

Around mid-morning, Mr Vikram Nair MP for Sembawang GRC (Admiralty), who was the guest of honour for this event, arrived and also participated in the distribution effort. Mr Nair also spent some time interacting with some families as part of the regular care and follow-up engagement effort by the Admiralty care team. 

As the recipients received the care pack, many were filled with smiles. Some of the Seniors expressed gratitude towards the visitation as with the current situation, some of their family members could not visit them. We also took this chance to revisit one of the families that was first in receiving BW Monastery Short Term Financing Assistant Scheme (FAS) and glad that they are now also further assisted by the Admiralty Care team. Post the distribution, Mr Vikram also spent some time interacting with the volunteers and expressed his gratitude towards the volunteers for supporting this distribution effort. 

The complexity of the challenges faced by some of the families cannot be addressed with only one visitation or distribution of a care pack. This is an ongoing journey and takes a collective effort by the community to intervene as early as possible so that the right support (monetary and psycho-social) can be provided timely. We thanked all the donors and volunteers who supported through material, monetary and time to enable the success of this distribution.

BW Monastery Community Care Team conducts monthly outreach distribution activity to reach out to the needy around the Sembawang GRC area. Should you like to find out more about how you can help or volunteer with the Community Care team, do reach out to : caredept2020@gmail.com I https://bwmonastery.org.sg/community-care