By Tan Yan Qi (26S06M)

If you asked me two years ago about where my CE01 project would go, I never would have been able to guess that we’d be doing what we are now. 

Project Oopsie Daisy started out as a simple VIA which aimed to promote horticulture as a method of improving mental health. Fast forward to Year 5, downsizes in the core team left only 5 members: Alice Chen Anhan (26S03L), Cecilia Wong (26S03K), Jyoti Adithi Narayanan (26S06M), Looi Ee Xin (26S06M) and me. 

I vividly remember how the search for a partner organisation went back then. We sent emails to community organisations (the usual targets), hoping to expand our range of beneficiaries beyond children, and somehow landed up on the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) volunteering website.

“Why not?” was the general consensus when we reached out to IMH. To be honest, it seemed rather laughable that we were even trying, but it was a last-ditch attempt after failing to hear back from our other prospective partner organisations, and there was no harm in trying, right?

Less than a week later, we received a reply. And thus, we started our volunteering journey at IMH.