UOB chiefs roll up their sleeves for charity

SINGAPORE - In addition to UOB's usual monetary donations, the bank's industry chiefs also contributed their own time and energy in giving back to the community this year.

On Feb 3, 60 volunteers comprising the UOB senior management team and local corporate chiefs prepared and distributed five thousand lunch boxes to beneficiaries over the course of six hours.

The festive meals were prepared at the Willing Hearts' soup kitchen and delivered to beneficiary centres at Circuit Road, Geylang Bahru and North Bridge Road. Willing Hearts is a charity that provides daily meals to underprivileged individuals and needy families in Singapore

The initiative is part of UOB's Lunar New Year outreach programme across the region, which also mobilised the bank's employees in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to distribute food and books to their local charities ahead of Chinese New Year.

Apart from employees, several clients of the bank also turned up to participate in the cooking session. Many of them even donated rice, vegetables and oil, and provided transport.

One such client was Voo Choon Ling from Woodlands Transport who sponsored the vehicles used for the delivery of the lunch boxes to the beneficiaries.

Aside from the cooking session, UOB will also continue to host its annual Commercial Banking Lunar New Year fundraiser dinner.

The bank hopes to raise S$500,000 from the evening's fundraiser, and has committed to match donations dollar-for-dollar up to S$250,000. All proceeds from the evening will be split equally among UOB's four chosen beneficiaries, which are The Business Times Budding Artists fund, The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund, TOUCH Ubi and Willing Hearts.

The beneficiaries were chosen based on their common support for art, children and education in Singapore, which are the key pillars of UOB's corporate social responsibility programme.

The bank's annual dinner will be held on Feb 12 at the Pan Pacific Hotel this year.

This article was first published on Feb 11, 2016.
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