Pay It Forward with Mooncakes 2020

This Mid-Autumn Festival, Aon marked the season by giving back to the community through a “Pay It Forward” partnership with our valued clients and colleagues.

With many aid organisations affected by the circuit-breaker rules, charities in Singapore have been experiencing decreased support from volunteers and donors. At the same time, they are also reporting increased demand as the less privileged and vulnerable struggle to make ends meet during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Beyond Social Services is one such organisation, helping children and youths from less privileged backgrounds escape the poverty cycle in Singapore over the past 50 years. “It takes $350 a year to support a child through Beyond’s programmes, which is often enabled by contributions from private companies,” a spokesperson for Beyond Social Services said.

In 2020, Aon presented our valued clients the option to forgo the Mid-Autumn festival traditional gift of mooncakes and donate the mooncake funds to charities instead. This initiative has successfully raised SGD 9,650, for Beyond Social Services, Halogen Foundation Singapore and SPCA Singapore. In addition to helping the less fortunate among us, this initiative also resulted in reducing waste, since up to 40% of mooncake packaging materials are non-recyclable.

Ivy Tse, CEO of Halogen Foundation shared, “The amount raised by Aon through the "Pay it Forward with Mooncakes" initiative contributes to Halogen Foundation’s Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) programme, which helps to develop business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset in kids in secondary school in the Normal Stream.”

“We are very grateful to Aon for choosing to support our cause of investing in young people, and in developing their character, mindsets and skillsets. Your belief in these young people gives them the support they need to grow and shine”, Tse added.

“This year’s Pay It Forward initiative is yet another example of our unbeatable Aon United spirit,” commented Andrew Minnitt, CEO of Aon Singapore. “There is no better way to celebrate the festive season during these challenging times than by inspiring each other and working hand-in-hand with our clients to serve our community. We hope this small endeavour by Aon can create a ripple effect of generosity in these times of great difficulty for those less fortunate than us.”