‘To Japan,With Love’ – charity promotion booth at New Balance Pacesetters 15km Putrajaya

My team and I from Kilau Suria Sports set-up ‘To Japan,With Love’ charity promotion booth at the New Balance Pacesetters 15km in Putrajaya yesterday. Azmar, Damshal, Ng Chee Kian, Wani and myself were on site near Palace of Justice as early as 5.15am 🙂 Our buntings, posters and other displays were up in no time. Runners were there as early as 5am, so it wasn’t long before we had visitors coming to our booth. Charity stickers were sold at RM1 each. It was exciting as this was the first time I had to experience managing my own charity booth though it wasn’t my first time handling a charity program. One of the charity program which I organized was the ‘Pakistan Earthquake Relief’ back in 2006 where I also collaborated with the Malaysia Red Crescent Society (Kuantan branch).It wasn’t any different from ‘To Japan, With Love’ just that this time the contribution will come from sponsors (individual and companies) who pledge for the ultra run I will be participating in a couple weeks time.

I had the honour of being the first person to hold and speak on the microphone yesterday in the morning. I made the announcement to invite runners to come to the booth and get their ‘To Japan With Love Sticker’, a white rectangular sticker with the slogan ‘To Japan With Love’ in red bold font as well as the Japanese kanji for it. I made the announcement twice (their emcee was not around yet..). The first one was okay, near professional I think. It was unscripted.. haha.. nervous actually. But I screwed up on the 2nd one ending it with a ‘See you !!!’. Anyways, it was interesting to have runners come by our booth checking out the displays, the kind of questions they asked me and my team, and of course, including the sarcastic ones which left me blank as I didn’t know how to answer. In the end, it is not the good deeds of others we should question but it is our own should be the one in question. Nevertheless I was touched, really touched with the overwhelming response received from all the runners and visitors to our booth.

I thank all of you who contributed to the cause by purchasing the RM1 ‘To Japan,With Love’ stickers. And to those who pledged, thank you also 🙂 We are still opening for contribution from the public for this charity drive. The charity promotion booth was made possible by Pacesetters, Powerbar, Totalfield, Quick Release Adventures( borrowed their posted stand!) and also my team from Kilau Suria Sports. It was THE ‘runners communal’ atmosphere that I enjoyed most about yesterday, together with the rest of my team, the Pacesetters committee and volunteers and all runners who made themselves comfortable post run, whether helping themselves with the snacks, taking photo or catching up’. Every running event especially here in KL is a reunion for most of us amateur runners/athletes. I had a photo opt with the Ironman Langkawi 2009 ‘batch’ ; Azmar, Raymond, Keat Seong and myself in front of the booth. All also showed support for the charity cause. Thank you guys ! Don Khor, Goh Choon Aun, Richard Habeya, Patsy Yap, Fairul, Moey, Azri from Cap Ayam, Choi, Wendy Soo were among those who dropped by the booth.

To Azmar, Damshal and Wani, thank you so much for helping out at the booth 🙂 Thank God we had your magic and nimble fingers handy to help cut out the lettering for the poster tuh. Ng Chee Kian, also another great soul who helped out. He was a mere stranger to me before he contacted me stating his interest to contribute in any he can, and turned up yesterday in Putrajaya from KLANG just to help out at the booth. While I am aware it was ‘just’ helping out’ it was his sincere intention which touched me. Chee Kian, sorry I have to put this up on my blog. It’s a blog after all remember ?! Interesting of Chee Kian to open up to me of what he really thinks of running (or any other sports for that matter) as a lifestyle, and how we, the belia/younger generation should step up to our right of a healthier lifestyle. I totally agree with you Chee Kian, and I am very impressed you actually came all the way from Klang. You taught me how to be a kinder kind person. Thank you friend.

To all of you who are keen to donate to this cause, feel free to drop a comment on this blog, or contact us as [kilausuria][@][gmail.com]. Alternatively do drop by http://www.kilausuriasports.com/tojapanwithlove for more information about the charity cause as well as how to donate. Encik Rustam, President of Pacesetters Athletic Club Malaysia, thank you again for the support. I truly appreciate it 🙂

Some pics from the charity promotion booth :-

Jamie Pang’s interview on the ‘To Japan With Love’ charity program‘

TO JAPAN WITH LOVE – OFFICIAL EVENT PAGE