SINGAPORE - Given the rising cost of living, all beneficiaries of The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund (STSPMF) will receive more pocket money and a one-off grant in 2023.
From January 2023, about 12,000 beneficiaries will receive $5 more each month, the fund announced on Wednesday during its annual appreciation day, held at SPH News Centre in Toa Payoh.
Primary school pupils will receive $65 each month instead of $60, secondary school students $100 instead of $95 and post-secondary students $125 instead of $120.
With the increase in pocket money and the one-off grant, the fund will disburse about $1 million more in 2023, compared with 2022.
Chairman of the fund Warren Fernandez said in his speech that the fund is doing more because soaring prices for energy, food and other items will hit the needy hardest.
“Please continue to support the ST School Pocket Money Fund, so that it can keep up its good work in making a difference to the lives of those most in need,” said Mr Fernandez, who will join communications firm Edelman on Oct 25 after stepping down as Straits Times editor and editor-in-chief of SPH Media Trust’s English/Malay/Tamil Media group.
SEA Games gold medallist Xu Jing Feng, who received help from the fund in 2017 and 2019 when he was in secondary school, said that he almost quit short track speed skating because it was too expensive for his mum, a single parent who worked multiple jobs, to support.
“The fund helped to relieve my school expenses tremendously,” he said.
STSPMF is a community project by The Straits Times that provides pocket money to children from low-income families to help them with expenses through school.
The fund supports families whose per capita gross monthly household income is less than $690.
It has helped more than 200,000 children and youth since its inception in 2000, having disbursed more than $90 million since then.
In 2021, it disbursed a record sum of $8.8 million to help more than 12,000 beneficiaries.
During the event, Mr Mohamed Abdul Jaleel, a long-time supporter of the fund, donated $500,000. Since 2010, the founder of property and logistics solutions company MES Group has donated about $5 million to the fund.
