Pay-It-Forward 1.0: Local Food by #FayeDiddleDoodle

Posted by May August 20, 2020

Pay-It-Forward 1.0: Local Food by #FayeDiddleDoodle

We are happy to announce our family's first Art Charity Project conceived by Ewan and painted by Faye is now LIVE! With the help of Faye's art teacher at Da Little Arts School, she painted three local food designs for this project - Ice Kachang, Chicken Rice and Laksa.

In this tech-ladened society, our children grow up communicating through text messages, emojis and emails. They've never quite been exposed to the traditional ways of communication in the form of handwritten letters. It is with lots of blessings that Ewan's English teacher from Kindergarten decided to snail mail her graduating class kids when they left for formal education in Primary School. She encouraged them to write back and not only does it improve their penmanship and essay-writing skills, it is a memorable way to touch the people you love. I adore watching the twinkle in my children's eyes when they receive a letter addressed to them. Who would have thought opening the letterbox can be this joyful?

With that, we created a letter writing stationery set illustrated by Faye.

100% of profits will be donated to Riding for the Disable Association.

Each letter writing stationery set consists of six stationery papers, six envelopes, six stickers and three postcards with a minimum donation of S$10. We welcome any amount more than the minimum sum *hugs*

Our cost is kept at an exceptional low because Allegro Print and StickieMama has kindly jumped on board this project by sponsoring all paper prints and stickers respectively! The only monetary costs involved are for materials to purchase of envelopes and postage stamps which amount to S$1.40. If you choose to pay S$10 for this stationery set, your nett donation per stationery set would be S$8.60. To pay it forward even further, my family will be doubling the total amount raised from sales at the end of this campaign!

SAYING NO TO PLASTIC

We are also going as green as we can for the benefit of our environment by choosing woodfree paper which are fully recyclable. The stickers are not vinyl coated because we handmade them [my family will be cutting 700 pieces by hand and the adhesive at the back is made of non-toxic matter] with StickieMama's Xyron Sticker Makers. Your packages will be put together without plastic sleeves. The only materials we will be using are brown recycled paper and twines/ribbons collected over the years from my personal stash.

Ewan, Faye and I have decided to absorb all labour cost to ensure our beneficiary will receive the bulk of your donations. All the preparation work and after-sales work are going to be daunting [hopefully with your support]! When you seal your envelopes with her Ice Kachang stickers, seal it with a kiss!

HOW TO PURCHASE?

Please reach out to me via email, Facebook private message or Instagram direct message with the following details:

Name:

Mailing Add:

No. of set[s]:

Donation Amount:

WHY WE CHOOSE RDA TO DONATE TO?

Riding for the Disable Association [RDA] provides horse riding therapy for free to the disabled. The range of disabilities that can benefit from it include: Physical disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy, Visual impairment, Hearing Impairment, CVA (Stroke) Cognitive or Intellectual disabilities such as Down’s Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Ewan and Faye first got to learn about horse therapy from this month's [August 2020] Panda Junior issue.

[Take 10% off your subscription to Singapore first magazine for kids by WWF with code "PJLiangMay"]

We dug further and from our humble research, beneficiaries from horse riding therapy experience an increase in self-confidence, improved circulation, respiration, balance, motor coordination and mobility. For someone who is unable to walk unaided, see or has difficulties communicating, riding a horse offers them a new sense of freedom and independence. The wheelchair-user, for example, walk tall on a horse and they can venture into the forest or jungle for a walk.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a strain on many. Having to cancel their fund-raising & outreach events originally planned for Q2 & Q3 2020, they are now critically short of $250,000.

#WeRideOnYourSupport individual donations also much welcomed - any amount would be appreciated. A small ~$10 ~$50 ~$100 donation would collectively make a huge difference and that's where Ewan and Faye chose to put this sum of money from Pay-It-Foward 1.0 to help not only the riders but also the horses. They are such animal lovers, it was hard for them to turn away from this.

Therapy Horses: These horseshelping to improve the quality of life for the beneficiaries and their families. As a charity, they need our help to sponsor the horses' yearly up-keep, food, health (medical and dental) and other associated costs.

Riders: Each batch consists of 12 riders with special needs who undergo a 10 weeks of horse-riding therapy with RDA. They do not charge the schools/riders nor do they receive any direct funding from any government ministry. Our donations help them off-set the costs of running these therapy programmes. Sponsoring a batch of 12 riders with special needs (x 10 sessions) cost $12,000.

Learn more about the work RDA does in this video clip.

HOW DID ALL THIS COME ABOUT?

“What is your favourite local food?” I asked Faye, “Desserts counted.”

“Ice-Kachang! Yes Yes Yes!” She exclaimed.

Faye loves her ice-kachang. This is a tote bag she painted at her art school for their National Day series and I love it to Ah Tap Ji bits!

I was thinking I could help her pave her way into being a Kidpreneur, selling local food series *tote bags and memorabilias. Level up the overall outlook with a Pom Pom keyring and have 20% of profits donated to a charity of her choice.

When I sounded this out to the family, the Daddy choked, “Only 20%? Haiya.” His son who inherited his generosity added, “This is a bad idea. 100% of profits SHOULD go to charity! Let’s do this!”

Awwww my big-hearted boys.

Our six year old artist didn't think that was a good idea though! She wondered out loud what's in for her then? If she had to work hard painting a series of pictures, she might as well make money out of it! That was when I saw the difference in her and Ewan - one an entrepreneur and the other, a philanthropist. That's a wonderful match to keep each other in check! A good balance.

I promised her, while our Pay-It-Forward 1.0 sale proceeds will be fully donated, her Pay-It-Forward 2.0 can be a part-earn part-give arrangement.

This is a wonderful opportunity to teach my children what giving back to society really means.

* R&D for tote bags and other products failed. Thus resulting in the birth of this letter writing stationery set.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES

Here, I want to share our thought process before settling on this 21-piece stationery set. I considered tote bags, paper files, EZLink cards, pouches and more. A handful of correspondences amongst a few printing companies got me nowhere. They ghosted on me without a concrete response or mock-up [I didn’t even talk about sponsorship!].

NOTEPAD AND STATIONERY: Allegro Print is the parent company of LayerPlay Design [my wallpapers at home are all printed and installed by LayerPlay]. They suggested a table notepad printed with Faye's paintings and did a mock-up for us. It is pretty neat! However, the thought of incurring a high cost in postage had this idea axed.

TOTE BAG: Da Little Arts School is an art school. They conduct art lessons as we all know but they also have the expertise [their own teachers and after many trial-and-errors] to print their own materials for art! They digitised Faye’s paintings and silk-screened them onto tote bags. The colours didn’t come out right and I found out that it’s because of the acrylic paints Faye used in her original copy. Unlike digital drawings, hand-painted portraits will have their colours compromised after digitisation and printing. We had to let this idea go. Her art school supported us by giving Faye extra lessons for the Laksa and Chicken Rice paintings!

Despite all the hiccups, we found the perfect product for the first installation of #FayeDiddleDoodleGivesBack.

CAMPAIGN PERIOD

We will be running Pay-It-Forward 1.0 until all 200 stationery sets are sold. An update and proof of donation will be published on our social media accounts. We thank you in advanced for your generosity and for loving Faye's illustrations at @FayeDiddleDoodle.

Remember to continue letter-writing! Every strike-through, every emotional tail to our letter Y and every deliberately-structured sentence become timeless in a hand-written letter. Let us teach our children to honour tradition and how they should make every word count. Just like how they should make every intention count.