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“Words of Wisdom” is an initiative to document and celebrate the stories, insights, and wisdom of Singapore’s senior citizens. It's powered by Folklory, a service dedicated to preserving stories through audio podcasts, who will collaborate with 60 seniors aged 60 and above to create a series of 60 podcasts, each capturing a unique slice of Singapore’s rich history and culture. Find out more info at Folklory.com
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:16
Unknown
Hello there. This is Terence from folkloric. What you're about to listen to is a podcast from the Words of Wisdom Project, where we spoke to 60 Singaporean over the age of 64, issue 60, and captured the life lessons for the next generation. We hope you enjoy it.
00:00:24:18 - 00:00:51:00
Unknown
Thank you for coming on this tour with, this interview. Basically, I think it is very casual. There is, perhaps, some interest that you may want to raise, from, what you call it, us. I'm almost, just give you a brief, account of myself. Right? Currently, I'm fully retired.
00:00:51:02 - 00:01:21:13
Unknown
I used to be working in the airline before. Perhaps, you know, some friends that maybe you never know, right? But, I was there for about 40 years, and, I do come across, times in my career where I have to, you know, like, conduct some interviews and, so I have a little bit of experience, although maybe I might be a bit, rusty, but nonetheless, I like my only passion is always to talk to people.
00:01:21:15 - 00:01:47:06
Unknown
You know, given the, service industry that I was, for all these years. Perhaps you can tell me a little bit about yourself. So I, I, I was actually, introduced to this by a friend, Sean, who says that they are recording, this series for, people above 60 years. Yeah, for the celebration. But, majorly not there yet.
00:01:47:07 - 00:02:18:08
Unknown
I'm actually 58. I think by the time you guys play this next year. Well, together with, Singapore, 60 of the. I will be 60 years old. And so I, I think I'm 45. So, Yeah. So I'm, I'm not retired yet. I tried to, but it didn't work. So, so I actually spend, big chunk of my time in, big multinational corporates.
00:02:18:10 - 00:02:47:08
Unknown
And, only in the last two, three years, I've, decided to try, NGOs, nonprofit, as a way, maybe to slow down and also a way to give back, and also to continue to use my experience and time, to, you know, to, to help NGOs. So that's what I'm doing for the last two, three years.
00:02:47:10 - 00:03:28:02
Unknown
So I am currently with a one, last year, food charity in Singapore called food from not food from the hut. Correct. Yeah. Well, we are other low profile, charity. But, we are actually quite huge in, alleviating hunger in Singapore. So our objective is really to, feed, and the lower income, the, the privileged in Singapore, as one of the primary objective of the, the charity and the secondary objective, of course, is to reduce food waste in Singapore.
00:03:28:04 - 00:03:48:03
Unknown
So that's what I'm doing now, every day as a as a full time job. Wow. I mean, that's a lot of sacrifice. You have to give. I mean, I it's a very good gesture that you, what do you call it? Giving back, as you said, giving back to society. I wouldn't, I wouldn't actually branded a sacrifice.
00:03:48:03 - 00:04:18:03
Unknown
I think a different point of life. You just have different motivations. Yeah, I in earlier part of your life motivation could be position and, big fat salaries, as you know, as the motivation and, and later part of your life maybe is to, you know, have more spiritual, satisfaction as than in a way to help other people.
00:04:18:05 - 00:04:41:17
Unknown
At the same time, you get paid as well. Of course, obviously not that much, but it's something to get by, something that you must enjoy. You must. Jemma. For everybody. Morning. Yeah. With you. And you'll find that, money clip something and just, you find it very easy, I presume, because you are very passionate about this role you're playing.
00:04:41:19 - 00:05:10:11
Unknown
Yeah. It's rather easy for me, because all my life, I've always been in marketing, business development, retail logistics and distributions. So what we are doing in, full from the heart is not much different from what I'm doing. In the past, we basically, runs a warehouse, we run the transport system, we run the distribution system, we buy food, we collect food, we distribute food.
00:05:10:11 - 00:05:35:23
Unknown
We even run shops, retail shops. Of course we don't make money off the shop. We just have shops. There are a lot of beneficiaries to go coming. So it's the whole operation is very, intuitive, same as what I've done in the past. So I'm just grateful that, you know, I'm able to transfer what I've done in the last 35 years, to this.
00:05:35:23 - 00:06:00:11
Unknown
And you and, I mean, I'm, I find it very interesting in that sense because, during my time also, there were, many of us in the airline business, we tried to reach out to some groups, you know, to help out in certain events, things like that. How do you, in fact, in for you in.
00:06:00:17 - 00:06:27:16
Unknown
But, as for your case, how do you source these people? Where do you find these people who are coming to your organizations who need, help, you know, in any way, shape or form? Okay. We don't, we don't source these people. We take, you know, in order to qualify to be, beneficiaries, obviously, they have to be have been be some someone who need help.
00:06:27:18 - 00:06:57:15
Unknown
So, which means most of the time we will need to know the financial status. So we do not really have access to that. So we work with our, partners, from, you know, from the source, like, social, in the Social Security office and also the under the MSF Ministry of Social Families. Yeah, yeah, we get the, the people who need help, and then we help them.
00:06:57:17 - 00:07:23:13
Unknown
Of course we do have a cutoff, to qualify for our programs, right? Because, the thing is, I mean, I believe you have a vetting system, and they also have a vetting system in their organization. Correct. Because we don't want to be serving the wrong people or we want to help and at the same time, we also go on to double staff, correct?
00:07:23:19 - 00:07:48:07
Unknown
Yeah. That's right. And, in the course of your journey with this, organization, do you find any challenges? Yeah. Of course. You know, our, our, our charity is all about feeding. And feeding is not ad hoc thing is not something you, you you rara during Christmas or Chinese New Year. How you. Right. Yeah, yeah.
00:07:48:09 - 00:08:14:22
Unknown
It's, it's a it's a it's a ongoing thing. You know, you keep on feeding, the less, the underprivileged until until they, they can stand on their feet, they find a job or a very sarcastic person. And so is it's an ongoing thing. So to do that, we really need to be very reliable, very consistent, and very sustainable.
00:08:14:22 - 00:08:50:05
Unknown
So what that means is that we have to constantly raise funds. We have. Yeah. The, the, get donation. We have to do, many, many, many food drives to get food donated to us in order for us to continue serving our close to 60,000 beneficiaries. And we conducted any, like, home visits. Yes, we our team, we do, do door to door deliveries sometime, where they are not able to come to our, one of our 120 distribution center to pick up.
00:08:50:05 - 00:09:14:13
Unknown
Yeah. While you have 120. That's a big, group to leave. Yes. Yeah. Actually, if you go into, Google. Yeah. PhD, you see, coming out, all of the things. So is there like, like a command center for you where you, you discuss and then, you know, you no. Yeah. We do have a command.
00:09:14:14 - 00:09:48:19
Unknown
I mean, we have a HQ. HQ is located, juicing taxing area that Papa Lima. So this is where we house our HQ, plus our main central warehouse, plus our, logistics and transport team and all our fundraise, from fund and raising teams and food games and food shopping. QC all go through this place here. So you are allocated I mean, in other words, you also allocated a certain amount of budget from the, social service.
00:09:48:21 - 00:10:15:09
Unknown
Yes. We, we of course, we need a budget to run our operations because we do have to pay rent, though, for a warehouse and, run vehicles, trucks and things to do all the distributions nicely. So during the distribution, I mean, you, I believe you, you come in contact with a lot of people. All right. Yes, of course, because, we, we distribute a lot, every month.
00:10:15:09 - 00:10:40:14
Unknown
So obviously, as I just mentioned, we distribute this, food packs to, about 120, so collection Center, which is run by our partners. And also we have this, school goodie bag program, which we distribute to about 47 schools serving about 1800 children every month as well. So right in contact with all these partners. So all in all, total number of touch point.
00:10:40:14 - 00:11:12:24
Unknown
We have about 355 80. Yeah. And I just want to be I'm just curious about the amount of, seniors, citizens that involved in this, project. Do you have a big number of senior citizens? Yes. Volunteer job. What beneficiaries? Definitely. A lot of them are senior citizen. And also, good thing among our volunteers, there's also, I wouldn't call senior citizen.
00:11:13:01 - 00:11:40:18
Unknown
Yeah. Like you may be retired. Yeah. Just want to, do some good for society and but most of it, they just want to, spend time productively, you know? You know, sometimes you just sit at home, you can your mind can go bonkers. So. So they they do come and volunteer with, so on our list, we have usually 10,000 volunteers right now on a, on a weekly daily basis.
00:11:40:18 - 00:12:07:17
Unknown
We probably have about maybe close to 30 to 50 of them. That comes the, to, to do the QC on food on leading the packing team for volunteer corporate volunteer. They come here leading the packing team and also doing door to door and of course, the bread run. I don't know if you heard about the bread run is one of our program where we we pick up all the.
00:12:07:17 - 00:12:31:12
Unknown
So bread at the end of the day from bakeries and it's distributed to homes. So those are the regulars, volunteers. And we also have 4 or 5 shops, community shops where we have very regular volunteers that run shops, like retailers. So we have many staff running all this is all volunteers. Interesting because, the thing here is that, at least you know where to do.
00:12:31:12 - 00:13:05:14
Unknown
I went to go and collect this food. I mean, organizations are willing to, really, release whatever wastage they have, I believe. Yeah. Well, yeah, we're trying very hard to collect as much as we can, but unfortunately, not everybody will give us food, but instead throw it away. But because of liability and, you know, issues and excitement in the process of your distribution of food, I believe you come in contact or having conversation to some of them who are needy when the needy group.
00:13:05:16 - 00:13:29:04
Unknown
Do you have do you find any difficulty in or do you understand. Yeah, yeah. Issues that they're facing or do you, do you recommend any form of, job vacancies for them in case. Yeah, it's been tentative and, what is those challenges that you are facing in that? I mean, we, we, we're we're in touch with our beneficiary.
00:13:29:04 - 00:13:56:02
Unknown
We are there focus on alleviating on this, whereas when, you are looking for a job or anything, of course, we can always link them with our partners, you know, and do some job search. But that's not our main focus. Our main focus is actually providing food and nutrition for them, when they are down or when they need it, because the whole job knows, you know, alone.
00:13:56:04 - 00:14:26:12
Unknown
So we do that. The challenge is we feel that this we are getting more of these inquiries because not because, you know, the countries getting poorer, but, but probably because food are getting more expensive. Yeah, yeah. The inflation is really creeping up really fast. So, obviously a lot more of them fall into categories that we have.
00:14:26:14 - 00:14:49:05
Unknown
Yeah. I tend to agree with you because, I believe, especially when you go to the hawker center these days, you know, you find that the prices are really going up and, yeah, certain things that you love and you just can't afford it all. And, you know, you, I'd like for me, Thank God my wife, cooks for me every day at home.
00:14:49:07 - 00:15:13:23
Unknown
So I don't have that worry of spending so much of money outside, you know? As for your volunteers, as far as, they're concerned, I mean, they, some of them may also need help. Am I right? Not that we have. I don't think we come across much of that. They they usually they, actually quite so self-sufficient.
00:15:13:23 - 00:15:41:00
Unknown
The official they have all have their probably their finances set and their time, you know, surpluses that they can give back to the societies. Yeah, but they, of course, they are also volunteers that who previously beneficiaries. Yeah. So one example would be a key that was used to help her when she was a medical school.
00:15:41:02 - 00:16:19:11
Unknown
Like enough food and all this because come from poor families. We help her through the years of early school and secondary school. And now she come back as volunteers, right? Yeah. As for you, I mean, as for you, what, what's your personal satisfaction that you really, really love when you do this? The personal satisfaction for me is, I think I get to wake up every morning looking forward to doing something.
00:16:19:13 - 00:16:58:12
Unknown
And, it doesn't really matter what it is. It could be running a charity to be running a profitable, profitable company or whatever. But I think most important is that you must be really happy doing what you do. This case for in this case, I, I yeah, I enjoy doing this because at the end of the day, when I go down to the distribution center and you go down to the doctor and to see, you know, the face of the beneficiaries when they receive this food, I think that's priceless.
00:16:58:12 - 00:17:34:20
Unknown
And, if you push me on, even though sometime, trying to respond is not easy. Yes. You have to. Yeah. Technically, yeah, you are, you are. You are begging for money and, and and and some are very kind, but some will ask a lot of question and not support anyway. So those are the things you feel so that that there's something that, is challenging, but that keeps me going.
00:17:34:20 - 00:18:00:03
Unknown
Right? I mean, versus doing that thing, yes, I think so. And do you exercise? Yes. I, the size of my, fitness. Yeah. Next to the standard, I, I actually totally damaged my knees. Oh. You know. Yeah. You better be careful, because, these, the knees, I mean, the legs are the most important part of it.
00:18:00:05 - 00:18:26:04
Unknown
So for those people who think they are very healthy, 30, 40, 50 years of life lessons always don't take your body for granted because your body aged and things do get wear and tear. So, Yeah, really take care. When I used to run two three times a week and, you know. Oh. Thank you. This, every time.
00:18:26:04 - 00:18:58:03
Unknown
And I take it for granted that, you know, you will go on forever and, when I hit my 55 years. So probably so. So when when I try to retire, I just really like my knees. So advice from other people that, you know, so earliest and for instance, take care of your knee, wear proper shoe, wear your kneecaps if you can and try to not to run downhill too fast, you know, why not.
00:18:58:05 - 00:19:26:10
Unknown
So this is the price I paid for. You know, I'm not totally better, but I need this backhand aspect to, good health. So I don't do so much running. I continue with my my mountain biking and my walks, and we go right. You know, given your line of, work as, as it is now, are you doing something like counseling service to some people?
00:19:26:10 - 00:20:09:13
Unknown
I mean, because given your expiring with, this, your passion for this, food distribution and, charity work. Yeah. I don't do counseling as, like, a, like a part of my job or whatever, but, yeah, sure, I do counsel people who, do start up, you know, they, try to start up new company and, you know, the things they need, I always question, one other thing they need to do when you are in a beginning of a startup and then we reach a certain stage, know what capability and resources the, put into the organization in order to bring them to the next level.
00:20:09:15 - 00:20:36:17
Unknown
So those are more business counseling in terms of, you know, youth counseling or problem problem youth counseling. You know, I don't do much. You don't do much. I don't think I qualified to do that, you know, but I think I think, I want I think I hear is important is because you are in this this, you is you are you are in a very interesting, line of work.
00:20:36:17 - 00:21:00:05
Unknown
You know, I in I find this I mean, the way you explain to me is quite challenging, because I think it is more so, my my my, my, I think the idea is that perhaps, you know, you can, you know, counseling is needed around our age group. You know, our age group, really, especially those who who feel that their mind is shut off.
00:21:00:07 - 00:21:26:19
Unknown
Yes. You may come across it, I believe. Yeah. Then I think that is, really dangerous area that a lot of us are getting into, especially with, you know, retirement especially. But what I feel sometimes, if you don't, if you don't know what you're going to do after retirement, it's actually a, trap. I feel so you really have to be prepared for retirement.
00:21:26:21 - 00:21:45:03
Unknown
I mean, retirement doesn't mean you still have to continue to work, but you must have some purpose in life. Something that you can wake up to, to, to and not just wake up to. Don't think so. I think, yeah, I would definitely talk to people who need to know that, because I try to do that. When I was 55.
00:21:45:05 - 00:22:13:03
Unknown
Yeah. When I was 55. And then, you know, I have all because I was so stressed out working in corporate for many, many years. Big corporate mind you were having I was posted in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and I have people I am running companies for $100 million. So it's so stressful. But I thought it was. You must totally important that I stop.
00:22:13:05 - 00:22:30:10
Unknown
So when I stop, I technically have nothing to do and no one. And then, you know, I go to my clubs, I swim every day, I go to the gym, I read all the books. I even take out all my whole ever 11 books and read.
00:22:30:12 - 00:22:52:12
Unknown
Those those, I mean. Really? Yeah. Last time we have ten year series, right? Yes yes, yes. Yeah. I'm quite a smart guy. So I don't read the book I just read in the exam. Then look at all my old books on my own. Let me, let me go through and read it. And then I read everything. So yeah, I find it like, cannot be like that.
00:22:52:14 - 00:23:17:01
Unknown
Yeah. Actually, offer myself again and then choose some recommendation they wanted to try and you, then say, okay, let's try and you realized actually running NGO is no different from running in profit organizations. Yeah, the same is true if you run a big one is still very corporatized. Yeah, but you have a different type of passion.
00:23:17:03 - 00:23:47:15
Unknown
Yeah. Because NGOs basically, I mean, is nonprofit. And the other part is that, have you come across like, there's a budget stream suddenly when you are running this organization? Of course, there there's always budget thing. No, especially when dues. So, you know, we, operating on donors money. So we are. Yeah. And everything we spend has to be very justifiable, and we can only spend money.
00:23:47:15 - 00:24:14:14
Unknown
And, of course, you know, even we organize event. Yeah, not a lot to spend more than 30% of, the cost of organizing the event versus, the donation that comes in. I mean, this is it that by by the, commissioner, charities. Yeah. So those are actually the certainly the, IPA, IPC, NGO in Singapore to watch and follow.
00:24:14:16 - 00:24:37:17
Unknown
So of course, there's always a constraint. Right. But, how do you I mean, when you identify donors, how do you identify donors? I mean, the good ones, the bad, I mean, the ones I don't think there's, good or bad donors. Yeah. We appreciate all donors. Even the dollar is a good donor. Yeah, it's less than 100,000 pounds.
00:24:37:19 - 00:25:02:14
Unknown
How we identify them. We have a few, avenue. We go to them, we impeach the foundation, we go to grants, we go to the governments. Or when we organize, even for matching grants, we go to individual donors, we go to corporate donors. And we also organize event to get donors. So there's a many, many avenues to to get all these funds.
00:25:02:16 - 00:25:29:10
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, it's, very, it goes a, I mean, you know, what you're telling me is that you you're moving around quite a bit. I mean, if you ask me. Yeah, I mean, I probably am sort of a salesman. Okay. So I'm, I'm going around really selling the cost admission of my, and, the, my revenue is donations.
00:25:29:12 - 00:25:54:20
Unknown
Yeah. I admire your energy level, actually, if you ask me. Yeah. Yeah. I'll grab it. Yeah. Because, you know, I, this kind of thing you asked me to do, I'm not ready. Yeah, I'm not ready for that. I mean, but you, you know, you've you're in this, room. Yeah. You rather thick skin. Yeah. And, I guess you should be driven by the philosophy.
00:25:54:20 - 00:26:17:23
Unknown
And you said you are, and you shall get. And that's, the most you get is a no. You won't get killed or get hammered. The most you get is a no. So just go ahead and do it right. I mean, nice talking to you. I just want to ask you a final question. Is there anything that you wanted to share with us so that we can.
00:26:17:23 - 00:26:49:17
Unknown
I mean, maybe for myself, personal self, then I can pass a message around, you know, that, what you are doing and also that, you did the, how did you get the amount of determination that you put, you know, this was can you share with us this money to, I think maybe not so much related to this work because I'm trying to understand this, this whole series from, I mean, the organic lady that organized this very lesson for the new generations.
00:26:49:19 - 00:27:12:02
Unknown
Wow. And eventually, this podcast can get kept clean, I think, in life, after living close to 60 years, how could I not, you not left live as long as you wanted. But after 16 years, you know, the whole thing has change, to our life. Along these 60 years, a lot of expectation has changed.
00:27:12:04 - 00:27:37:03
Unknown
A lot of what we believe in the past is no longer what we believe today. So things changes very fast. So, in our earlier years, we always think that we were very hot and in the beginning and then try to enjoy it was the end, I think, please don't do that. I think we should actually enjoy along the way and if anything makes us unhappy, stop.
00:27:37:05 - 00:28:03:23
Unknown
Don't do it. Just do whatever makes you happy. Because when you think you have accumulated enough, you might not have the time to enjoy it. So you must enjoy whatever you do along the way. This, this my advice to young people and and I think the young one know them fairly well. Now, which is why, you know, they need to be, fighting a new challenge, whenever they are not happy to just leave.
00:28:04:02 - 00:28:23:20
Unknown
I think that again is a bit extreme. But I think it's the right place to be. I think if we can find the middle ground of able to live in the present rather than, you know, thinking about what happened in the past and what have coming in the future, we really don't know. But this really could be the present.
00:28:23:20 - 00:28:49:24
Unknown
So now for me, every day my prayers to myself, is, you know, to be in the present, to live in the present moment by moment, never, never overthink things. And, just, enjoy, you know, be happy and grateful that you can wake up in the morning and do whatever you want to do. And, don't overthink that.
00:28:50:05 - 00:29:02:07
Unknown
But this really don't overthink.
00:29:02:09 - 00:29:31:06
Unknown
Hello again. I hope you enjoyed listening to that folkloric Words of Wisdom is a project by Charlotte Go, powered by folklore, read and supported by our Singapore Fund. To find out more, please visit our website at Folklorico. Com. That's that's okay o r y com. Goodbye.