happen? Let us have a look back into one residents’ journey.
We sat in the dining hall, sleep still hangingover our heads. All we could offer each other was a regretful twitch of the lips as we chewed, miserably, on breakfast while the sky was still dark. We made one final check of our items: empty donation tins, stacks of pages of 20-cent sized
stickers, water bottles among other belongings. Many of us dropped in a couple of coins before leaving to the designated venues, hoping that Lady Luck would come our way, bringing along throngs of generous people. We piled unceremoniously into buses, making our way to the various MRT stations as the sky began to lighten. While the sun rose, painting the island a warm salmon hue, we took our positions and waited in anticipation for the morning crowd.
We spread out in teams of six, taking all the exits of the Boon Keng MRT station. I stood by the entrance, feeling slightly ridiculous in the pink NUSSU t-shirt, holding an almost empty can, save the few coins I had dropped in earlier, when a couple of my friends who were not residents of halls waved to me as they entered the station to catch the train campus bound. My mood lightened significantly when some of the people I approached emptied their coin purses into my can. Of all the excuses I heard, the one repeated most often, was that they were late to catch the MRT. This went on for about an hour or two after which, more and more students flagging for their faculties arrived and it started getting crowded. My team met up around 9am when we found that we were competing with too many people in trying to get donations and decided to make the move to our next destination.
What was more terrifying was that the crowd, which had started to dwindle a little, was getting annoyed and jumpy whenever somebody wearing the pink t-shirt attempted to approach them. Many started to shake their head violently, or take drastic wide turns to get away from us. It was as if we suddenly grew bulbous warts and nobody dared to pass within two meters radius of us.
Sighing in agony, my team left the MRT station and took to the streets, hoping to get away from the cluster of NUS students barricading the entrances to the station.
Our next destination was Raffles Place and City Hall that we hoped would be easy with the throngs of working class “rich” people. Coming out of the MRT, I was hit by a sea of pink. There were people from other halls and faculties- it was just saturated completely. To make things worse, people in these huge buildings had small pockets, refusing adamantly to donate. In such a dismal situation, determination was a wonderful companion for perseverance that day, as we traipsed along the streets, looking out for members of the public who did not have the white stickers plastered conspicuously on their tops. Occasionally, we got our hopes up when the persons we approached whipped out their wallets, only to have it crash down when they flashed a sticker. I must say, by mid-afternoon, we were accustomed to rejections and any five-cent coin deposited by a stranger felt like cool water to parched lips.
Finally, we took our lunch break at a nearby MacDonald’s, ingesting calorie laden fries and greasy burgers, resting our tired bodies in preparation for the next session that turned out to be similar to the one before. Towards the evening, we moved onto Chinatown. The number of pink NUSSU shirts we came across had decreased dramatically. Maybe it was because The Simpsons was airing in cinemas. At Chinatown, the collection picked up rapidly and though my arms had started to ache, I peered into my can and was glad that I could begin to see the top layer of coins sitting beneath the gap in the metal. Shoving it into my backpack, I took out a fresh can and welcomed the seemingly absence of weight in my hands.
Soon after nightfall, my can was almost half full and I was overcome by a rising sense of exhaustion. Rattling the contents violently I reminded myself that this was all for charity, not for glory. Thinking of the needy that would benefit from the twenty different beneficiaries compelled me to work harder and encourage the other members of my team to do so. With this in mind we called it a day and made our way back, first to the collection point and then back to the hall...
303 flaggers + 440 cans+ 13 hours of flagging +sweat, blood and tears=$64 795.83=
1 GOLD AWARD!!
