Dinner with Love 2019 – Hope, Inclusiveness & Intergeneration!

So ends Dinner with Love 2019. It was a night where we can come together to celebrate empowered lives with energetic performances and heart-tugging stories of life transformation.

On 9 November 2019, we gathered at Orchard Hotel to celebrate hope, inclusiveness & intergeneration and to raise funds to support the various programmes managed by Hope Centre. We are privileged and honoured to have Mr. Tan Chuan-Jin, Speaker of Parliament, to attend and open Dinner with Love as our Guest-of-Honour, and Ms. Denise Phua, Mayor of Central Singapore District to attend as our Special Guest.

With the opening of our King George’s Avenue centre in 2018, we were able to kickstart our Seniors’ Programme. And earlier in 2019, we are proud to be one of the first few organisations in Singapore to pioneer an Intergeneration Programme. This is where children and youths are able to mingle with the seniors from our drop-in programmes, bridging the gap between the two diverse generations. We aimed to raise $200,000 to run and support the various programmes managed by Hope Centre.

It was a night filled with exciting performances to celebrate the lives of our beneficiaries and to appreciate our donors and sponsors. Our beneficiaries from our children and youth programmes (HD Dance Movement), performed an energetic dance. It was followed by a beautiful song duet and a dance item from our seniors. They might be old, but on that evening, everyone was young at heart! Well done everyone!

After the performances, we listened to the testimonies of Uncle Ting And Silvia. They are beneficiaries from our Seniors Drop-In and Tuition with Love programmes. These are stories of their lives being empowered and transformed, and how everyone is able to live life to their fullest potential. It was followed by an affirmation of the various teachers who gave their time and effort to bless the children in the community. It ended on a touching note as we surprised Silvia with a token of appreciation…by her tuition mentee! It is truly amazing to see how she as a beneficiary, turning into a volunteer as she too wants to give back to the community. More than just teaching kids, Tuition with Love aims to holistically build up the lives of children, and this could not be done without our amazing volunteers, teachers and peers.

In the next segment, we watched a video depicting an interaction between a youth and a senior from our drop-ins. Saswin whom is 8 years old had a cheeky conversation with Madam Lee whom is aged 80. That’s 72 years in difference! It was a light-hearted and fun moment, seeing how each generation viewed each other and their various life experiences. Most importantly, it showed how intergeneration can work and how it can benefit both parties!

Then we had a live band performance by our volunteers. Setting the mood and atmosphere, we concluded with a popular song, “We Are The World”. When the band was leading everyone to a mass sing-along, our children and youth beneficiaries went to present a momento, a succulent plant sponsored by Rabbit Island, to all of our dinner guests in appreciation for their generous donations and presence at our Dinner with Love 2019.

Dinner with Love 2019 has come to a conclusion and we are excited to announce that we broke our goal of raising $200,000! Thanks to the contribution of everyone, we raised a total of $216,000! Dinner with Love 2019 is a huge success and we could not have done it without the contributions and giving hands of our all donors, sponsors and volunteers.

A big shout out to:

Guest-of-Honour: Mr. Tan Chuan-Jin, Speaker of Parliament – for gracing our event,
Special Guest: Ms. Denise Phua Lay Peng, Mayor, Central Singapore District – for gracing our event and donation at our live auction
Rabbit Island – for sponsoring all of the succulent plants,
The Gift Empire Pte Ltd – for sponsoring all of the Good Morning Towels
Colortic Media Pte Ltd – for sponsoring the Certificates of Appreciation
Dr. Lee Hung Ming – for your generous donation at our live auction,
and to all of our Gold Sponsors!