From a Singapore Angle

CNA, Jan 24: One month after they started, the Singapore Red Cross Society's "Tidal Waves Asia Fund" collects a total of S$65 million (just under US$40 million). That's about US$9.25 per capita (Singapore's population is 4.3 million). Apparently, the number may still increase as "as collections from other NGOs have yet to be tallied."

To put it in perspective: Germany (population 82.4 million) would have collected US$762 million and the United States (population 293 million) US$2.7 billion at the same rate.

For the past two weeks or so, I was under the impression that most of the donations after the first week of collection were corporate givings. It turned out that I was mistaken: private individuals gave some S$46 million (69%) while the remaining S$20 million (31%) came from corporations and civic/religious organizations.

And this Red Cross volunteer reminds us of a group of unsung heroes in this story (ST Forum, Jan 24):

...They were the ones who stayed back to continue working through the night when the volunteers had called it a day. They were also the ones who were at Red Cross House the next morning before many of the volunteers arrived. They were the ones who had to fix the mess that over-zealous volunteers created in the first few hectic days. And while the volunteers would just walk away from the mess, this group would not leave until the work was done.

These wonderful people are the staff at Red Cross. While some may say that they are 'paid to do the job', from what I had seen while helping out there, the staff had to endure more than what anyone would be paid for.

From incessant calls by over-anxious donors asking for receipts, to accusations that donations were rejected (just because the donors' cheques had yet to be processed), to preposterous requests (like demanding receipts for donations that could not even pay for the postage), the staff had to answer in the nicest way possible to the concerned, the ignorant, and even the downright unreasonable.

Until you have helped out in processing the tens of thousands of cheques that arrived at Red Cross House for the Tidal Waves Asia Fund, you can never truly appreciate the enormity of the task that the Red Cross staff faced in getting to the stage of sending out official receipts.

This was on top of issuing thousands of receipts for cash donations, and dealing with the numerous cheques that bounced.

As a volunteer, I did not have to bother about the public's queries. I could even walk away from the unreasonable minority. But the staff at Red Cross could not. They were urged to 'look at the bigger picture'. They had to get the job done, not for the sake of the donors, but for the sake of the tsunami victims.

For that, Singaporeans owe them a big Thank You.

Tee Wei In

Amen!