Flag Days

April 3, 2007
Many turn blind eye to Flag Day collection

MARCH 31 was 'Flag Day' - a day for all St John cadets, island-wide, to go around collecting donations.

My squad mates and I set off for various places with positive attitudes, hoping to collect donations, only to face disappointment and frustration.

My senior and I were positioned outside Queensway shopping mall. The human traffic there was fantastic. But whenever I approached any of them, they shunned me and quickened their pace in a bid to avoid me.

Out of 20 people, one came forward. There were some people who turned the other way when I was walking towards them. This left me shocked and appalled.

Would it do any harm to come forward to make a donation, regardless of the amount?

There were even passers-by commenting that we may be the second NKF, and our motive was to con them. I was utterly wordless upon hearing this.

I hope people will take on a more positive mindset when donating and let bygones just be bygones.

Lim Jia Yan Jasmine (Miss)

I got to admit I have stopped donating on flag days.

One reason is that I find the government is not doing enough to help charity organisations. Instead they are giving themselves a fat paycheck.

Also there are too many flag days in Singapore. We used to seem them on Saturdays only but now sometime weekdays are swamped with flag days.

I also wonder how many of these charities are properly managed.

I can suggest a good solution. Get the cabinet to donate 10% of their monthly salaries to a pool. Member of the public can also donate as well.

Then which ever organisation need to raise fund, they can write a proposal or report to the group managing the pool of money. The goup will then decide how much to give to this applicant.

Why should the poor man on the street give when the rich man in the room don’t?

I think we should think about this before complaining on the poor response on flag days.