A day as a volunteer

Last Monday, our classmates along with the fashion design students headed to EcoBank's main warehouse where all the sorting and categorizing was done. I did not know what to expect when Anisa told us to leave our typical princess-ness at home. I wouldn't say I'm not a princess because I often get treated well at home. However, when it's time to do tough labour, I will not complain and just suck it up. And on that day, all those years of strict Asian parenting and discipline paid off in a way.

Everyone were given a set of gloves and face masks when handling the items as some items may be dirty and dusty. It was hell for someone like me who has sinus and is extra sensitive to dust. On top of that, my metabolism is through the roof so I think I literally created a sweat pool that day.

Despite that, I kept reminding myself that all of the work we did that day plus the marketing work is all for a good cause, which was for The Children’s Charities Association of Singapore (CCA). I often tell myself to always give back to society, especially since I was blessed to have a great life, I shouldn't limit myself to my own happiness. This is probably why I always find the joy in helping others and seeing someone else happy makes me happy and fulfilled.

So this was the pile of stuff we had to sort which was probably as tall as I am. This was just the aftermath from just a few days, and it's not even from the whole of Singapore! The worst part about this is as we were sorting the stuff into respective categories, there were many clothes that were still in great condition, some even had the tags on!

Dav put me in charge to help the filming team do the stop-motion styling videos and I got Shraddhaa to help me out since she's experienced with styling. At first I was worried we couldn't find anything nice to photograph since people were donating stuff they didn't want, but I was so wrong! There were so many nice things that even I wanted to steal home because I could totally wear em. We found brands like Asos, American Apparel, H&M, Zara and Tommy Hilfiger just to name a few. Many of us are in disbelief from seeing so many great stuff being thrown away just like that.

That morning was a great wake-up call for everyone to see how much waste humans are producing these days. Especially if we don't do anything about it, the Earth, also the place we call home will soon be terribly polluted with landfills and waste. I used to whine to my friends about how hard it is to create a sustainable brand for our project, like why does the school have to make our lives so difficult? However, I really understand now. I now understand that they are educating the younger generation to shop wisely and responsibly for a better, greener future.