Students at Singapore American School are empowered and encouraged to make a difference in their communities and develop an early commitment to active citizenship as part of being a responsible global citizen. Multiple student-led initiatives have flourished over the years, and these are constantly evolving in response to local and global needs. 
 
In a time where it would be have been very easy to resign to the end of the IASAS season due to the pandemic, our selfless Eagles took on a different challenge. Tenth grade student Alicia Nguyen and her brother started an organization called Fitness for Goodness during the Circuit Breaker. The aim of this organization was to spread the love for fitness and raise funds for those in need. Nguyen was inspired to give back to the community when she saw how migrant workers were greatly affected by COVID-19 in Singapore. She wanted to work on raising funds for them, while also doing something she loves. 

As a varsity basketball player, Nguyen was able to encourage her fellow team members to continue playing basketball, but this time for a greater cause. She created the HOME HOOPS Basketball Challenge, a fundraising challenge that connected SAS’s girls basketball program with the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME). 

Senior Supreeya Maloney was also an advocate for this fundraiser who spent countless hours on the basketball court, and encouraged her peers to support the cause. Maloney shares, “My coach approached me and told me about a charity that Alicia was already involved with and I wanted to help her. I saw an opportunity to get various members from all the grade levels involved, allowing us to play basketball but at the same time help a community that really needs it.”

SAS students worked on basketball drills/activities for a minimum of 20 minutes and encouraged donors to pledge and donate money for the amount of time they worked on their basketball skills. The three-week campaign raised a whopping S$3,400 and all of their donations were donated directly to HOME. During the process of running this campaign, Coach Scott Mackinnon was a huge helper and mentor to the students. He helped communicate and spread their message to many individuals at SAS. Nguyen muses, “Coach Mackinnon also came up with the campaign mission and background information. Without him, this campaign would definitely have not been successful. Big thank you to him!”
 
It was not an easy feat for Nguyen due to the many COVID-19 restrictions in place. One major challenge faced by the players was the limited access to facilities, which meant that they had to practice at home. Our basketball players used this opportunity to practice the often overlooked skill of dribbling. 
 
Nguyen shares, “I have learned so much from this experience. The little things, like reaching out to donors and participators, and creating and submitting the campaign proposal to the government and organizations were aspects of the campaign that I unintentionally and was lucky enough to learn more about.”