By Kaelynn Yap (20S03A), President, Chua Yang Jie (20S03L), Vice-President, and Chee Min Yee Sarah (20S07C), Vice-President
Service begins from a place closest to home: it comes from the heart, from the simplest but greatest wish of serving others. It is about letting your heart brim with love for the people around you, and allowing that love to reach others when they need it most. Interactors put in time and effort to build connections with people and aim to touch the lives of others by being messengers of warmth and care. Just like how a single candle lights up an entire room, Interactors not only deliver joy to others, but in doing so also receive warmth in return, in ways we never expected.
The purest form of happiness comes from bringing happiness to others, and this is something you’ll experience in the smallest of moments. It’s in the split second when the student you’ve been trying to befriend for weeks cracks a smile at you for the first time. When you listen to an elderly auntie with dementia break out in song, only for her to ask “Do I sound good?” with a toothy grin. When your buddy with an intellectual disability grins victoriously at you after persistent tries at reading a picture card. It’s in these beautiful moments that you realise that there’s so much more to life than just yourself.
Service before self. Perhaps a little lofty sounding, and daunting to most: Where does one even begin? Well, Interact is a safe space for you to learn and grow. It is a place for you to take that leap of faith and embark on what is a lifelong calling for many. Maybe it’s a little intimidating to put yourself out there, but don’t be afraid. Service doesn’t need you to be perfect; you can come just as you are, because what truly matters is that you have an open mind and a heart of love.
Interactors take our first steps in our service journey through our weekly service sessions, where we head down to the different service centres to spend those precious few hours with our beneficiaries. We reach out to the community through elderly care centres (COMNET Senior Services), welfare organisations (MINDS and Sunlove Dementia Care Centre) and organisations that help children from disadvantaged backgrounds (Pertapis Children’s Home, Henderson Care Centre, and Chen Su Lan Methodist Children’s Home). It is in these regular interactions that we build the strong foundations of trust and friendship with our beneficiaries.
Building on these service sessions, we have weekly General Meetings, where we equip ourselves with the skills and experiences to better empathise and reach out to our beneficiaries, and to prepare for our yearly events. Our signature events traditionally include Youth Got Heart, Live in the Dark, and Interact Camp. Each of these large-scale events is a crucial platform for our club to come together and achieve something greater than ourselves. Reaching out to very different members of the community, each of these unique events are undergirded by the desire to make a difference to the wider community, a core tenet of our club.
As a family of 150 like-minded people, we come together in hopes of being part of something greater than ourselves. At the end of the day, what brings us together more than anything is the love for the community that we hold so dear to our hearts and the close ties we have forged with one another. As long as you share this love for others, we welcome you with open arms. Your Interact journey awaits!