The Piggy Bank Club|Where kids recycle, save and donate

Published 18 January 2016 ● Last Updated on 6 December 2016

Shikha Lamba is a Hong Kong based mumpreneur who has been featured on Secondsguru as an expert at upcycling and reinventing old, often forgotten jewellery [Shikha Lamba: The jewellery transformer]. What we inadvertently missed mentioning in our cover story on Shikha is the adorable movement started by her, aptly called, “The Piggy Bank club”.

So what is the Piggy Bank Club, Hong Kong? It’s a recycling activity club with a social purpose whose members meet few times in the year. Every time they meet, they decorate a used tin or a can (milk powder tin, Ovaltine tin, or similar) with magazines, scrap paper, toilet paper rolls, stickers and lots of color to make their own piggy bank. They then collect dollar change and coins in these piggy banks made from recycled material. And hold your breath… it’s a club exclusively for kids. They take adult help only where absolutely needed: for example the adults pitch in by cutting out an opening on the tin/can cover for the coins to be dropped into the “piggy banks”!

The Value system: These young people are sensitised to be aware of what many children in the world do not have: a secure life and a family. They also tacitly learn to appreciate the benefits of recycling by saving up tins, cans, old newspapers, scrap paper, stickers to make their beautiful money saving banks quarter after quarter! At every meet, the collections made by the kids in their older adorable” piggy banks” are combined and donated to a charity which helps underprivileged children in various parts of the world. As a reward for the selfless donations made, the kids make new piggy banks and diligently send in the one from the previous time for recycling.

Why have we featured this on www.secondsguru.com?

Secondsguru thinks “The Piggy Bank Club” is a wonderful way of imbibing the habit of recycling and empathy in little people early in life! At the moment, this club exists only in Hong Kong. Not for too long though, as Shikha has given Secondsguru a nod to do a Singapore version of the Piggy Bank club. Secondsguru will hold the maiden Piggy Bank Club meet on Saturday the 23rd of January 2016, at Pebble Bay, Tanjong Rhu.(130 Tanjong Rhu Road, Singapore 436918. Function Room at Lobby J – level 1). This piggy bank club will use slightly different raw material (PET bottles instead of Milk cans/tins) from the HK chapter to make the piggy bank , but in spirit it will be exactly the same. We would love to invite 10 kids in the age range of 4- 10 yrs to join. We aim to hold such meets once a quarter over a weekend, so that the time commitment for the busy little kids is not much. 100% of the funds raised by the kids will be donated to a Singapore based Charity Good Shepard Centre. This centre is run by Marymount Centre  a voluntary welfare organization set up in Singapore in the 1940s.

Where: Pebble Bay Function Room. Lobby J – Level 1

When: Saturday, January 23rd 2016

From: 10am to 11:30 am

Age Group: 4-10 yrs old

Cost: 5$ for materials

Kids who sign up : Must come with lots of enthusiasm and be prepared to get messy!

Send us an email message titled “Piggy Bank Club” along with the name and age of your child on blog@secondsguru.com if you and your kids would like to be a part of this movement! Or just sign up on our FB page. The final participants will be selected on a first-come-first-severed basis and intimated. The information we receive will be kept fully confidential. 

Update: Get the pictures of our launch meet up here!