The woman who makes every birthday a project to uplift and help others in need

I have never felt entirely comfortable making my birthday all about myself because I’ve always felt a little awkward at all the unnecessary attention.
After all, it’s just another day of the year, isn’t it? 
One year, I decided to make it less about me but more about the people who have supported me – by buying my loved ones a good meal. 
I still recall the effort it took to coordinate, but frankly, it’s been about eight years since I arranged that one dinner.
I’m now back to letting everyone else fuss over me on my birthday in early December because it’s just easier not to refuse the attention.
That’s why I’m particularly impressed by Chloe Lim’s effort in putting together an annual birthday initiative for the past 12 years not for family but for complete strangers as a way to mark her birthday. 
While the 32-year-old still has quiet celebrations with loved ones, she also uses the day to serve various charities and beneficiaries under a quirky initiative she calls “Happy birthday to me to you.”
A partner at integrated creative agency DSTNCT, Ms Lim spoke to me on a recent Friday afternoon at her office, in a cosy meeting room that resembles a glasshouse.
She explained that the seed for the idea was planted when she was a law student at the Singapore Management University and had to enrol in a compulsory elective on creative thinking.
One of the takeaways from the module was that “questioning assumptions” is a tool to being creative.
She recalled: “I wanted to question the assumption of birthdays being about myself.”
While going down a research rabbit hole, Ms Lim found out that although it might seem counter-intuitive, giving and living a life of service to others is central to also caring for oneself.
And doing this can be very good for one’s mental health.
Serendipitously, her birthday – Oct 10 – falls on World Mental Health Day.
This prompted Ms Lim to marry the two: Challenging the notion that birthdays should be only about self-celebration, and thus exploring an alternative way to celebrate her life – by serving and celebrating others.
Laughing, Ms Lim said: “During Christmas, everyone’s in a good mood and (by doing this in) October, it’s kind of like I’m making that Christmas feeling come earlier. It’s just a whole season of giving, giving back and serving the community.”
She started small that first year, as part of her university project, writing cards and gifting presents to family and close friends.
Then it snowballed into something bigger.
“It was something I didn’t intend on continuing, because it was a project. But when I first launched it, I saw the conversations that began (among my family and friends) and how it made people rethink giving and their birthdays,” she said.
The project has evolved over the years but is always focused on the practice of giving, though not necessarily monetary donations or explicit fundraising.
I took a glance at her office around me. It was a beautiful space, with bright and colourful campaign posters adorning its walls. 
Portions of the office were set aside to display other works from their clients’ past advertising campaigns. There is no doubt that these people live and breathe creativity.
Do such artsy efforts spill over to the type of initiative she organises every year?
Not necessarily, she said.
One year, Ms Lim paired up with Singapore rapper and actor Sheikh Haikel – who owned the now-defunct halal burger joint Fatpapas at the time – to run an in-store promotion. She added that the pair coincidentally shares the same birthday on Oct 10.
That year, part of the profits from the burger sales went to supporting Clarity Singapore, a mental health charity.
Another year, Ms Lim spent her birthday volunteering at a special needs school in India. She made and sold notebooks there, and the proceeds went towards keeping the school running and supporting people with special needs.
The project takes on a creative slant some years – especially after her agency DSTNCT began adopting the project as part of its annual corporate social responsibility initiative.
Together, they have committed to pooling their creative juices for good.
In 2022, the company’s creatives came on board to run a mini art gallery of sorts. They created and sold art to raise funds for non-profit organisation Limitless, which seeks to empower young people and to end powerlessness caused by poverty, mental illness and social inequality.
Ms Lim does not closely track the reach of her annual efforts but she estimated that they have helped more than 5,000 people and raised more than S$15,000 over the 12 years.
“Ultimately, the core of the initiative is to create a normalcy of giving, a culture of serving others,” she said.
At least two other friends have been inspired to start their own birthday initiatives as a result.
Although such an initiative can be filled with good intentions, it is easy to burn out when one tries to consistently host such an event to serve others.
I couldn’t help but wonder: How much time does she devote during her birthday each year to prepare for this?
Ms Lim told me that the exact timeline differs from year to year, depending on how intensive the initiative and outreach is.
On average, however, it takes her about a month to choose the beneficiary, plan and prepare for it.
And while the beneficiaries are different each year, they are usually organisations focused on mental health services as an ode to the project’s roots.
Of course, there are exceptions.
This year, Ms Lim’s choice of beneficiary was born from a conversation with her boyfriend’s mother, who is a volunteer with Happee Hearts Movement – a non-profit organisation dedicated to serving the health needs of adults with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers.
Ms Lim had watched the Love is Blind UK series on streaming site Netflix, where a cast member had a brother with an intellectual disability, and it prompted her to think further about the intellectually disabled community and what those around them may learn from caring for them.
So she aptly themed this year’s campaign series as “This is what you’ve taught me”. 
Ms Lim and volunteers from her agency photographed three beneficiary families under Happee Hearts Movement, and will be presenting the framed photos to the families as gifts.
Happee Hearts Movement is free to use the photos on social media or on its website.
Ms Lim is hoping that the photos would help the charity “raise awareness and inspire giving”.
“And for the families, I wanted to retell their stories, and to let them have a takeaway.”
Running such a photoshoot or annual corporate social responsibility initiative could easily become a mere task over the years, but I see how Ms Lim takes care to ensure that her interactions with the families are not merely transactional.
When I joined her, her colleague and a family one Saturday earlier this month, I was pleasantly surprised to see how she had devoted so much of the time together to befriending the family.
She spent a good part of the morning with Ms Janet Hong who has an auditory and speech disability. Ms Hong is a patient of Happee Hearts Movement and its clinical service arm IDHealth.
I later learned that Ms Lim had, weeks earlier, also joined Ms Hong and her family on a walk to get to know them better.
This ensured that the family felt at ease with her, and her colleague could better photograph the family in their natural element.
Laughter filled the family’s home that morning as they engaged in a spirited game of Othello, which Ms Hong easily won.
As the morning wrapped up, Ms Hong’s older sister Janice told me that she is so grateful for what Ms Lim and her team are doing, and for devoting their weekend time to the sisters and other families.
I also began to catch a clearer glimpse of what Ms Lim meant by saying that she has also received in a way as a result of giving.
“Before I started this, my birthdays were even less of a big deal. But now, people remember my birthdays more because I do this. 
“I think that it does show the irony of giving: When you make your life about other people, it always comes back to you.”
What happens long after the candles are blown out and her birthday comes and goes?
Ms Lim told me that she stays in contact with some of the past beneficiaries, including Limitless, the organisation that helps youth.
“I still get updates about how the counselling sessions have gone for some of the individuals who have benefitted (from the money raised).
“Honestly I don’t do it for these things (like affirmation and recognition), but I think those are indicators of why I should keep doing it, or why there’s a reason to.”
Although she’s not sure how many years she will continue her birthday initiative, Ms Lim believes that the message of living a life of service to others is timeless.
“It’s a message that will be relevant until the end of time. I think that it will always kind of live on – though, in what shape and form, is dependent on that period of time.”