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I brought the kids to check the first-ever Washing-thon in Singapore a few days back, and it was an interesting experience!

The event happened at Toa Payoh and what first greeted us was this:

A humongous pile of clothes! These clothes had been donated by members of public as well as corporations, as part of their contributions to this worthy community cause. Clothes collected would be laundered, ironed and then shipped to various parts of Cambodia, Laos etc, where the clothes would bless many needy people out there. This event is done through charity partners MINDs and Blessings in a Bag.

Response to this event had been overwhelming, as I was told by the organizers. To-date, they have collected 8,000 kilograms of donated clothes, and from what I could see, most of them are of excellent quality! They are expecting the donations to cross 10,000 kg, which is just plain amazing. Looks like Singaporeans do have a lot of unwanted clothes and they are very willing to donate them so that they get a second lease of life!

Not only are donations forthcoming, the other amazing thing is the number of volunteers involved in the sorting, packing and washing of the clothes. They are on shifts to make sure that every piece of clothing is washed and properly packed to be shipped off to their respective destinations.

As fringe activities at the event, there were free popcorn & candy floss given out to kids, and stalls with handmade crafts sold for fund-raising.

It was the kids' first time seeing such a high clothes pile, and I love it that I could take the opportunity to tell them how blessed we are in Singapore, when many poorer people living in other countries may not have proper and nice clothes to wear, and we can do a small part to help them live better lives.