Andrew Tan has a vision.
He has made it his goal to give back to UB and the Queen City's community. As president of the Singapore Student Association (SgSA) and a senior business major, he created a new community service chair position to ensure SgSA gives back to the local community.
SgSA is hosting its second-annual Cosmic Bowling night. This year, the event will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation and will give back to the community, one strike at a time.
Last year, SgSA held its first Cosmic Bowling event at Tonawanda Lanes, where the group boasted a strong turnout of supporters and dominated 20 of the alley's lanes.
The event initially started out as a social event where students and SA came together to have friendly competitions and to win prizes.
This year, the group is doubling its attendance. Members hope to have 40 lanes booked at Transit Lanes and have already invited 18 international student associations, faculty, Student Association executive board members, corporate teams and the Make-A-Wish Foundation representatives.
This year, instead of trying to host a purely social event, SgSA wants to make sure this time its cause is one that ultimately benefits the community as a whole.
Tan and his other executive board members came up with the idea to give participating members more responsibility and control over the event's outcome.
"Since the event is on Nov. 11, we adopted the idea to make a wish on 11:11," Tan said. "Make-A-Wish Foundation is relevant because it is close to the hearts of the participant members. They will be able to put themselves in a positive position."
According to Tan, Singaporeans like to volunteer. Most Singaporeans start to volunteer in elementary school, which teaches the young students the importance of helping out in one's own community.
"In Singapore, some of the places that we volunteer are at old folks' homes, hospitals and local parks," Tan said. "Singaporeans like to give back to make a meaningful impact to locals and give back to less fortunate people and less privileged people."
According to Tan, there are four steps to Make-A-Wish: to be, to go, to do and to have. The cost of one wish is about $7,500, according to Tan.
SgSA hopes to make at least one wish come true with donations the group will be giving. All the proceeds from the event will be donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Aside from the Cosmic Bowling event, SgSA also has some other charity activities planned for the participants of the event.
SgSA will be auctioning away a variety of items that range from small prizes to a date with one of its executive board members.
Melissa Tan, a senior communication major, will be auctioning herself for a date to the highest bidder at the event.
"We were joking around and coming up with ideas for the event, so I joked and said, 'Yeah, okay, I'll put myself for auction for a date,'" Melissa said.
Melissa said she hopes the bidders will spare no expense to win a date with her. She wants all of the proceeds from the auction to go toward the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Ryan Teng, a senior business major and vice president of SgSA, is fully supportive of Tan and his vision to give back to the Buffalo community.
"It is a very strong culture in Singapore - in the communities, in Singapore we give back. What [Tan] emphasized a lot when he took on his term as president was that he wanted us to have our own community service event to give back," Teng said.
Teng said he and Tan are working very hard to make this a successful event for members of his organization and for all the other individuals involved.
"What we want to do is to make an event our own, our own initiative," Teng said. "This Cosmic Bowling is our own initiative. It just so happened that the event is on 11/11 so it struck us to do it with Make-A-Wish foundation."
Tan hopes this event will trigger other schools and organizations to donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, not only nationally, but globally as well. He hopes to maybe even some day bring the campaign to Singapore.
"So by benefiting Make-A-Wish Foundation and wish families, what we are trying to start here is the possibility of the idea going global," Tan said. "Who knows how much grander, how much more larger scale it could be in years to come. There is potential for it and room for it."
The club has great expectations the event will have a great turn out. The event is open to the public. For more information about the event, go to SgSA's Facebook page.
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