An Evening of Good Acts
Our First Fundraising Event on 7 April 2018
Our inaugural event marks a significant milestone for ACTSmarket in our 2.5-year journey as a social enterprise. Two hundred guests enjoyed a marvelous evening with a 20-piece big band, karaoke singing, auctions, wine-tasting and a shopping spree. The merry-making were all done in the spirit of supporting a good cause: to empower the disabled and needy communities.
Executive director Cheryl Lee sharing ACTSmarket’s vision and mission.
Mr. Peter Sim belting out a passionate “Fly Me to the Moon” to his wife,
who bidded for his performance during our karaoke segment.
Emboldened by his daughter at his side, Mr Chiang Kwok Shong overcame his shyness
and performed their duet of “Can’t Help Falling in Love”.
The ‘Good Acts’ Shopping Experience
A grand dinner offering guilt-free shopping? What a novel idea. Some 205 ethically-made products were snapped up.
Guests holding up a soap made by trafficked women from Kolkata and a necklace made by
teenage orphans from a Cambodian children’s home.
Anita and friends took a closer look at our Village Artisan scarves made by
needy women from a traditional north Indian community.
Guilt-free shopping: every purchase gives hope to the maker for a brighter future.
Live Music By WindWorkz, The Big Band
The vibrant sound of a 20-piece big band played through out the evening. Our guests bidded for their kins and friends to sing with a big band, not a K-pop machine - a rare opportunity indeed. We had so much fun listening to popular classics such as Can’t Help Falling in Love, My Heart Will Go On and Fly Me to the Moon.
Through the event, ACTSmarket Ltd raised $80,000. After deducting the event expenses, we have a surplus of $60,000, thanks to our supportive guests. This will be used as seed money to fund our livelihood projects and to start the production of the Apostle musical.
Apostle Musical
We hope that the Apostle musical will help raise the awareness of ACTSmarket Ltd and build its war chest to do more good work among the poor.
We are looking for partners who can help us underwrite the tickets for musical. This would reduce our financial risks. The Apostle musical is about the inspiring story of Saul, who became Paul, the tent-making apostle from the book of Acts.
Livelihood Project For Visually Handicapped Community (Kolkata, India)
After the fund-raising dinner, our Product Development team flew off to Kolkata. We stayed at the D.F. Blind School for nearly 4 weeks to develop a new product line of handwoven bags. The goal was to create meaningful job opportunities for blind weavers.
The skilled blind weavers of D.F. Blind School crafting their woven products.
A New Community For PolyHope Project
The PolyHope project was started in Oct 2017 in collaboration with Operations Hope Foundation to turn thousands of handmade Polymer clay beads, left behind from their previous project, into necklaces and earrings. The goal was to provide an opportunity for teenage residents of their children’s home in Cambodia to learn crafting skills and build up their savings before they leave the home at 18 years old. About 6 orphans and needy teens were trained. The necklaces and earrings were well received at our pop-ups. The pilot project provided us with a model that can be used to jumpstart livelihood projects in other communities. We are looking for a needy community of women to step up production and to create a source of income for them.
Doi Chang @ Golden Triangle: Fight Drug Trafficking With Tourism
In July, our ACTS project team spent 3 weeks at Doi Chang, a tribal village in the mountains of north Thailand, to study if it has the potential to be developed into a tourist stopover or destination. We hoped that tourism can be the key to reducing high unemployment among the Akha youths and young adults so that they would be less vulnerable to drug addiction and trafficking. The study was sponsored by apVentures. The study indicated that with its natural scenic beauty, farms and close proximity to Chiang Rai, Doi Chang has good potential to become a tourist stop.
Following the completion of the Feasibility Study, another project team flew to Doi Chang in September and spent 3 weeks collecting material and video footages. ACTSmarket is building a website, producing a marketing video and tourist map, basic publicity tools that we hope can raise public awareness that Doi Chang is more than just a coffee paradise. With this strategy, we hope that more tourists will come to Doi Chang, creating a multiplier effect that would provide more jobs to the tribal villagers.
Website developed by interns, ACTSmarket
Help Someone. Shop.
With Christmas season upon us, drop by our pop-up stalls and bless someone needy with your shopping. Check out our event page.
Pop-up at Credit Suisse
