|
Limited PORSCHE, Cerebos and New Creation Church have doubled their sponsorship for the annual children's charity concert, ChildAid. All three are now Platinum sponsors of the event, after raising their donations to $100,000 each.
The ChildAid concert, now in its fifth year, supports both The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund and The Business Times Budding Artists Fund. This year, it will be the first concert to be held at the new Resorts World at Sentosa, from Dec 19 to 21.
Concert organisers have auditioned over 550 youths in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, and the line-up will be revealed next month by ChildAid's music director Iskandar Ismail. Karsono Kwee, executive chairman of Eurokaars Group, which distributes the Porsche brand here, said: "ChildAid's goal of showcasing the best young musicians to help their less fortunate peers is one we share and support."
Cerebos CEO Eiji Koike too said that the company views ChildAid as an "important community effort that not only discovers new Singaporean musical youth talent but provides timely support for needy schoolchildren".
The downturn has in fact heightened the need for such support. In the first half of this year, 9,855 families asked The ST School Pocket Money Fund for help - 1,000 more than for the whole of 2008. New Creation Church's deacon Matthew Kang said that it was "glad to back this effort and ensure that needy schoolchildren do not go hungry". "I've been attending ChildAid concerts and the talent in Singapore is amazing," he said.
Fundraising remains challenging, says the organising chairman of ChildAid and ST School Pocket Money Fund, Peter Khoo. An estimated 11,000 families will apply for $5.7 million in aid this year.
Since January, only $2 million has been raised.
The Business Times editor Alvin Tay said that the BT Budding Artists Fund also requires more funding to extend its reach. "It is important that we keep underprivileged children involved in the arts as well. This extends their skills set and helps in their overall development," he said.
ChildAid has raised over $1.6 million over the past five years, with $506,000 raised last year. Interested donors can email childaid@sph.com.sg
|
