Article for Term 3

http://www.straitstimes.com/Singapore/Story/STIStory_250147.html

June 21, 2008
Once a thug, he's now 'son' to the elderly
Chance encounter at senior citizens' corner in his teens leads to life of volunteering
By April Chong

AT 15, Tommy Yu was a neighbourhood thug.
He turned up one evening at a senior citizens' corner in Redhill where he lived, intending to pick a fight over the loud music the old folk were enjoying.
Instead, the boy, who had picked up smoking and dropped out of school at 11, ended up befriending the old folk.
Today, nearly 30 years down the road, he is still looking out for them. He runs a charity which looks after their welfare, and even picks up the tab for the funerals of those without family.
Of his first encounter with the old folk, MrYu, now 43, said: 'I was there to look for trouble.'
But an elderly man welcomed him and invited him to take a seat among his group of friends.
That simple gesture of acceptance awoke something in the drifting, restless teenager.
When a pair of youths turned up shortly after that, also bent on picking a fight over the noise, Mr Yu said he found himself standing up to them and saying: 'If you want to find trouble, look for me instead. How can you bully the elderly?'
In the following days, he became a frequent visitor of his new friends and stopped loitering in the neighbourhood coffee shops.
Laughing, he said: 'I did not know what volunteering was about.'
But he rallied his friends to 'volunteer' at the senior citizens' corner anyway. They talked to the old folk and kept trouble-makers away.
From a poor family himself, the young man did not earn much, only about $200 a month from odd jobs.
But he forked out what he could, especially for funerals for old folk with no family.
'Everyone looked down on me. But there, I felt I could actually do something,' he said.
In 1986, at 21, he named his group Love And Unity.
Trips to orphanages and senior citizens' homes to spruce up the premises and take them gifts of food burnt a hole in their pockets.
'We could not do much because we had no money. Spending $300 on each visit set us back by three months,' he said.
MrYu registered the group as a society only in 2004.
It has 30 active volunteers who organise festival celebrations and outings for old folk.
His volunteer work has since expanded to other neighbourhoods in Redhill and Jalan Bukit Ho Swee.
Today, he spends no less than three evenings a week, making visits in his beat-up pickup to look in on the almost 200 old folk there.
If any of them fails to turn up at the void deck, he goes to their home to look them up.
He now handles about 22 funerals a year for them, as well as for unclaimed bodies from homes and hospitals.
He does not just pay for these last rites. He also plays the role of a 'son' and performs 'filial duties' during the annual Qing Ming festival.
At last count, MrYu has more than 80 'mums' and 'dads' to whom he pays his respects every year.
He now runs a modest Chinese flag-printing company and has a family with three children to look after, but he still mans a 24-hour hotline for old folk under the Love And Unity Volunteers Establishment.
He cannot afford to hire someone to do this, he said. 'Whatever donations I get now are barely enough for the funeral arrangements.'
But he will not stop his volunteer work any time soon.
'I will not stop until the day I die myself. I want to do what I can while I can,' he said.