DBS Staff Taking To The Streets For Island-Wide Fund-Raising Drive This Sunday

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Flag Day To Raise Money For The School Pocket Money Fund

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Staff Volunteerism Rate At DBS Outstrips National Average

SINGAPORE, NOV 14 - Some 200 DBS staff and their families will fan out from six DBS Bank and POSB locations island-wide this Sunday to help raise funds for the School Pocket Money Fund.

Affectionately code-named Project Care, the staff volunteers will appeal to the generosity of the public as well as their own colleagues in a three-day drive starting this Thursday. The Project will support the Fund set up to help needy school children pay for day-to-day school expenses, such as public transportation or lunches. The National Council of Social Service administers the Fund, giving out $30 a month to recipients in primary schools, and $50 to older students.

This Thursday and Friday, the DBS volunteers will enlist the support of their 6,000 colleagues located at 11 buildings around Shenton Way, Orchard Road, Tampines and Chai Chee. For branch employees, they simply credit their donations straight into a POSB savings account set up specifically for this charity drive.

On Sunday afternoon from 1.00 p.m., the volunteers and their families will sell sticker-flags around six branch locations at Ang Mo Kio, Tampines Centre, Bukit Batok, Liat Towers, Raffles City and South Bridge Road.

"Project Care is more than just about giving money to a worthy cause. It is about our staff getting involved in an activity that focuses on enabling young Singaporeans to help themselves - and that's the core philosophy behind our community relations projects," said Darryl Dickens, Head of Group Communications at DBS Bank.

As of September this year, the DBS staff participation rate in community service activities reached 10.6%, outstripping the national average of 9.3% as calculated by the National Volunteer Centre.

"We want to promote corporate volunteerism among our employees and it's great that staff have been so enthusiastic. We hope to exceed 12% by year-end," said Dickens.

DBS Bank announced in July last year that it would grant all of its employees in Singapore two days of paid time annually for community service.

Besides Project Care, the Bank is also sponsoring all call charges to the two 1-900 telephone lines for public donations as well as helping to count the donations from over 1,000 collection tins amassed so far in the entire School Pocket Money Fund drive.