Dover Park Hospice fund raising project proves a hit for
wrong reasons
SINGAPORE: Charity fundraisers are common in Singapore. But an
initiative to raise money to help care for the dying has
highlighted a less charitable side of the nation.
The sunflower is a symbol of palliative care and Dover Park
Hospice began selling them at Raffles Place on Monday to raise
funds.
Those who donate S$5 can either plant a flower nearby or take it
away.
But on Tuesday morning, volunteers arrived to find empty grass
patches as all the 1,000 sunflowers planted the day before had been
taken away.
Stefanie Yuen—Thio, chairperson, Dover Park Hospice, Fund
Raising Committee, said: "Singaporeans may not have known what this
was about, they may have thought it was the gerberas from the
kindness movement."
There were no signs to indicate the sunflowers are part of a
fundraiser, creating a moral dilemma for some.
Said one woman in the street: "If everybody is taking it, people
will think that it’s free."
But discreet tags on the flowers pricked the conscience of some
who had taken them.
Ms Yuen—Thio added: "When some people who had taken it and read
the little tag on the card, they found that the flowers were part
of a fundraising effort. They felt really bad. A lovely lady who
had taken it by mistake came back and she apologised, and she made
a S$40 donation."
To prevent the sunflowers from being taken again, they will be
put up in the morning and removed in the evening, everyday, until
the Dover Park Hospice walk on Sunday.
— CNA/vm