Straits Times Article
US Envoy's 'Amazing Race' For a Good Cause (Straits Times Article)
Sept. 26, 2004
US envoy's 'amazing race' for a good cause
United States ambassador Frank Lavin spent a good part of yesterday zipping across the island, delivering food to needy families, celebrating birthdays with children and even joining in a mooncake party.
His 'amazing race' around Singapore was for a good cause - the American Chamber of Commerce's annual Corporate Community Day, an event that Mr Lavin introduced last year.
Yesterday, 17 organisations, including big names like ExxonMobil, ABN Amro Bank and Oracle, planned and hosted various activities in 11 separate locations around the island.
Beneficiaries included the Jamiyah Children's Home, needy residents and welfare organisations like the Geylang East Home for the Aged.
Mr Lavin's day started off in the Botanic Gardens at 9am, where he flagged off a treasure hunt organised by General Electric staff for children from various homes and orphanages.
Then, it was off to Marsiling Road, where he and Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman, an MP for Sembawang GRC, delivered cartons of food to needy families living in rented one-room flats.
The food drive was organised by Agilent Technologies, which pooled together $15,000 to buy the food hampers for 350 families.
A recipient, Mr Kee Wah Kok, 62, said the rice, biscuits, noodles and canned food would last him more than two weeks. The former coffee-shop assistant is blind in one eye after an irate customer attacked him a year ago. He has been out of work since.
'This will help me save some money. I'm very grateful,' he said in Mandarin.
After that stop, the ambassador hit the road again, this time headed for Marine Parade.
There, staff from Oracle and volunteers from Food From The Heart were waiting with $8,500 worth of food and household appliances.
Mr Lavin and Mr Othman Haron Eusofe, former mayor of Southeast Community Development Council and now Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, gave away the goodies to needy residents.
At 4.30pm, after another four locations, the ambassador ended his 'charity tour' at the Communicable Disease Centre. Volunteers from five American associations, including the American Club and the US Embassy, cooked up some healthy soup and spent time with patients.
Mr Lavin said he was encouraged to see how involved the corporations were: 'The bottom line is important in business, but it's not everything.
'Corporations have to go beyond that. To reach out to the community, it takes a little effort but it makes a lot of people happy.'
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