Want your kids to be compassionate? Show them how through The Giving Family

Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, helping the students at PCF Sparkletots Admiralty Childcare, make a piggy bank. ST PHOTO: KOK XING HUI

SINGAPORE - While on their way to get ice cream with their parents, Jason and Jane ran into an old man collecting cardboard. His trolley was broken, so the family stopped to help him.

This is the storyline of a new children's book by non-profit Touch Community Services that will be distributed to 50,000 pre-schoolers this month.

The book is part of an initiative called The Giving Family, through which Touch aims to spark a national movement of families giving to the needy together.

The initiative was launched on Thursday (Sept 1) by Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth at PCF Sparkletots Admiralty Childcare.

Mr James Tan, executive director of Touch, said: "Values are more often caught than taught. A great way for kids to understand what compassion means is for the family to demonstrate giving together."

Hence, the storybook encourages families to start a savings project together, and to later commit the money saved to disadvantaged Singaporeans supported by the President's Challenge.

Families keen to volunteer can also join Touch at one-off volunteering experiences organised during the June and December school holidays.

Touch aims to have 1,500 families giving to the initiative by the end of next year.

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