The Joy of Giving
A wonderful day to you guys! My name is Liew Yong Han and I am currently an SEO intern for The Patatas. It is my pleasure to share with you guys our experience in the joy of giving and what I have learned during our intern chill out session on the 27th December 2021.
We started the day with food distribution at Ang Mo Kio. It was an eye opening and a rather rewarding experience as it was my first time taking part in a food distribution activity. We distributed chicken rice to the elderly staying in 1-room flats. Because of the constrained size of the apartment, they have little space to move around. These were not the best living conditions. This is especially true for some units that have more than 2 elderly staying in. It was quite disheartening to see that their families have abandoned some of the elderly. In one unit that we distributed to, one of the elderly mentioned that he had a fall at home and was unconscious for 2 days. He was only discovered when his neighbour realised he had not been going for his daily walk.
Despite their plight, one thing that struck me was how closely knitted their community is. Almost everyone under the same block knows each other. When we were going to the next floor to distribute food, one of the elderly mentioned that the neighbour that is living in one of the units will be out of his morning walk, and told us to hang the food by his door. Even though they have little, they are constantly grateful and content with what they have, which I feel that most of us could learn from them. As the saying goes, “Only by giving are you able to receive more than you already have.”–Jim Rohn. It has made me realise we rarely appreciate things that we have, such as spacious living conditions. It has certainly widened my perspective to be content in life and not to take things for granted.
During the food distribution, I get to know more about my fellow interns from various companies under Potato Productions. It was interesting to hear about their roles, responsibilities and struggles they faced during their internship stint.
After a fruitful time of giving back to the community, we headed for lunch. During lunch, we shared our interests, different perspectives for life and the joy of giving back to the community. It was refreshing to hear the different takes on certain topics and what drives them to strive for their goals. It was a shame that I had to leave earlier, but the rest of the interns went ahead and did some pottery at Boons’s Pottery! Even though I am not there, from the photo, I believe you can see that they certainly enjoyed themselves!
