Why You Should Volunteer
It is something that I’ve dived into and had never looked back, there were no bad experiences or those taunting ones, many would say they have. I started quite young actually, late 16, going 17 doing for a non-profit organization. And when I say Non-profit organization, many asked “is it those charities or taking care of old folks? Is that what you do?” The short answer is No, but it's no surprised people would think that.
So Non-profit organizations are businesses that have been granted tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) because it furthers a social cause and provides a public benefit.
Some examples of those organizations might not be surprised to you, Acres, SPCA, Angels of Impact, SCAPE, and many more.
These are just a few memorable volunteering experiences I had over the years the span of 2–3 years.
I love music -I mean who doesn’t… and honestly, I didn’t really know much about the local music scene in Singapore till 2018. I still remembered the first-ever big event I volunteered for was SHINE FEST back in August of 2018. My role was to give coins to passerby's to let them play a mini lucky draw, the fun part was meeting new people, artists in different area like graffiti artist, ZERO, and many talented musicians.
this are two of my favorite graffiti artists of all time, speakcryptic and Zero
https://www.instagram.com/speakcryptic/
https://www.instagram.com/zero_:/
got the chance to watch Tabitha Nauser Live as well!
https://www.instagram.com/tabithanauser/
oh and do check out her newest single “Vices”
https://ffm.to/tabithanauser_vices
In the same year, I volunteered for ITF congress 2018 ( which was A BIG THING back then) one of the sponsors was SMOU under NTUC, held at Suntec City Convention Hall. With delegates from all around the world and I kid you not... but before I show you the pictures, volunteering made me realized that you got to go out of your comfort zone to ask or even to strike a conversation. That language barrier and how you carry yourself because when you volunteer, you’re not alone, you’re actually someone representing Singapore. So, I totally didn’t freak out when they told us that…
And again the friends i’ve made, and they’re all different ages but was interested in the same thing. (i think we are still following each other’s Intagram)
My role as a volunteer was to bring in guests who had signed up to try Virtual Reality (VR).
Do you see those cabinets at the back? those are translations booths, translators are to translate in real-time through the headphones available at registration, delegates simply had to change the channel to the respective language.
It was a productive event, I mean what else is there to say about the congress.. but the food though, IT WAS AMAZING
Anyways, another event that I did and fell in love with events was Youth Music Award 2019, an award event to recognize the talent of fellow musicians like Charlie Lim, Yung Raja, and many others. The Mc for the event was none other Dee Kosh, Youtube content creator, did you know that he’s really tall like tall tall.. so once again my role was to guide the artist to their seats and to be an artist liaison, which means to bring the artist backstage to receive or to present the award. It was an eye opening experience no less, talking about the local music industry scene right here on our little red dot.
Volunteers had to reached SCAPE THEATRE at 10 am to know what our roles are and to watch the rehearsal.
I am a huge fan of many Singaporean musicians like Yung Raja, Shye, Royal Estate, Nigel Ng, and many more. This was actually my chance to be ‘thick-skinned’ to go up to them for a picture and say that I’m a huge fan. And I did just that.. I fell in love with the song MUSTAFA by Yung Raja which he did actually performed during the ceremony. These are just some of my favorite pictures from that day.
the winners from all the categories
By the way, his Yung Raja’s new single is out, The Dance Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdKS6_lNeF4
And not to forget the most amazing crew, I’ve ever worked with
It was a blast working with them, not only, that we grew closer than ever. I was lucky enough to still be able to work with them on different projects. Since I’m currently studying Event Management full time, I was blessed to still be in contact with some of them who helped me through my difficult projects by giving me their advice and feedback. Oh, and I forgot to mention that some of the crew members are also musicians, so I got the opportunity to dive even deeper about the industry in Singapore.
Talking about the music scene in Singapore, here’s another event I did in December 2019, BARE by SGMUSO, bringing local musicians to create a space for them to play and spread awareness of the local music industry. This was actually the very moment where i fell instantly in love with Russell from Royal Estate. But before i tell you why or how, my role for the event was doing registration. and i had no regrets
Every fangirl’s dream was to get their phone number and guess what.. I DID
Again, the group I was with, I can never forget, us dealing with Microsoft excel for registration and trying the food and drinks (beer) was one of the highlights of the night.
But the main highlight was actually …
Straight up went to him with my good friend Vicki who was not of any help at all.. and stutter saying “i’m a huge fan, can i please take a picture with you?”
At that time, I can’t feel my hands and legs not to mention my heart felt like it was going come out..
HE SAID “ Thank you for supporting!” and HUGGED ME , replied sure, HE PUT HIS HANDS ON MY WAIST.. I died again
“It's not about the event but it's about who you work with that makes it memorable”
To keep the best for last, Garden Beats 2020, at Fort Canning, as a volunteer I had incentives like free admission, $30 food vouchers to be redeemed after the shift ended, and a crew shirt.
I had to do transactions to deposit the money from their credit card to the RFID tag, which was hectic because of the internet connection. My shift started from 5–7 pm however volunteers are required to come 1 hour earlier to check-in and change. But me being me, came at 1 pm to enjoy the festival.
sunburnt
Basically, I was in charge of depositing money and doing the cups rental for two hours. Before I signed up as a volunteer, i had no clue what Garden Beats was till I went there. Many genres of music were playing and i think i lost about 2 kg just by walking… and once again, i got to socialize and made more friends. And guess who I met once again like it was fate.
again we hugged.. and my heart was fluttering with butterflies in my tummy, not knowing what to do or say.. mind just went blank, and i swear, i asked the most stupid question to embarrass myself.. “are you going to attend the youth music award next year?, who are you favourite musician here today?” I mean, he was nice to answer my stupid questions which made me fell even deeper.. i mean to think we got something on was abit farfetched, and knowing he’s friends with Narelle Kheng and many other talented musicians was like “I got no chance at all”. who am i to think that someone like him would like me back right? But anyways, i asked for a picture again but this time, he took the picture with his phone -well as you can see, i was still holding on to mine..
Anyway time to move on shall we? So meeting Russell was after my shift, and i went to get some food to eat and of course enjoy the after party..
I got this basic healthy sorbet and a vegan salad cos the queue was unexpectedly long, but the food was alright, in a sense that i don’t know how usually Spanish taste like so it wasn’t that great for me.
this was taken at the main stage so there was a lot of people
and that was it, tiring but a fulfilling day
Oh there’s another story, so Garden Beats event was before I enrolled into Event Management, so one of my core modules for the first semester had to do a SWOT and a PESTLE analysis of a particular event. And yes, you got that right, i was put into the Garden Beats group, i did not tell the lecturers or my groupmates that I’ve been and did the event first hand till we started our report on it. Lucky me, I did not delete the slides shared or the important numbers you had to call for emergencies so, I was able to contact the planning team to find out more about what went behind the planning and execution of the event. So that's basically how I did my report.
So in conclusion, when you see any volunteering opportunities, go for it, expect nothing and go in with an open mind.
before I forget, another advice is you won't forget what these connections will help you in the future. Most importantly surround yourself with smart and like-minded people.
