WHO: Host-actress Belinda Lee, 46, is a familiar face to Singapore audiences. The bilingual former Mediacorp star won Star Awards’ Best Info-Ed Programme Host in 2013 for the travel and infotainment programme Find Me A Singaporean (2006 to 2014), and has also bagged the Top 10 Most Popular Female Artistes five times between 2013 and 2018.
Lee resides in Singapore with her husband, American architect David Moore, whom she married in 2019. They travel frequently to Orange County, California, to visit her in-laws.
She recently hosted the three-episode programme Our Heart Of Care, which is available on mewatch. In the series, she speaks to Silver Generation Ambassadors – volunteers who support the ageing needs of seniors in Singapore – about their experiences.
“My perfect weekend starts with a Saturday morning doing community work with my group of friends and other volunteers. I am with a group called Mustard Seed that started about 10 years ago and we regularly do community work together.
We have been working with Henderson Community Centre to support the elderly for a long time. On Saturdays, we will usually pick up breakfast for distribution at around 8.15am and start giving it out to the seniors from 9am.
A lot of them live alone in rental flats in the area because not everyone has family. They get seated at tables, we serve them food and beverages like coffee, then we get them to engage in some morning activities like dance or exercise with us.
It is not just about distributing food. It is a very all-rounded sort of activity where we also want to help them with active living and be more integrated with the community.
After the session, the volunteers will clean up and maybe hang out among ourselves to bond and discuss what we can do to serve our community better.
Then I will head home and, on the way back, I might grab something simple for my husband to eat. If we are not too tired, we will go for a game of pickleball.
Pickleball started in the United States and became very big there over the past few years. I was introduced to it 1½ years ago while I was on holiday in Hawaii.
It is sort of a hybrid of tennis, badminton and table tennis. Instead of rackets, we have paddles. The ball is not fuzzy like a tennis ball but a hard plastic one. It is such a satisfying game, especially when you hear the pong-pong sound of the paddle hitting the ball.
I am glad I found people who play pickleball here and, in fact, I got a coach to teach me the sport as well. I am about to go on a humanitarian trip to Thailand and I heard that the kids in the Thai countryside play pickleball, so I hope I will be good enough to join them in the game.
I used to spend a lot of money on massages but ever since I got into pickleball, perhaps because it is a full-body workout, all my aches and pains have gone away and I feel more energetic too.
On Sundays, we always start the day by going to church. I attend New Life Community Church with my husband. We might go for lunch with friends afterwards, but if not, I will visit my dad.
He is 75 and we have a caretaker, but I try to go back often to see him, especially since I sometimes spend one or two months at a time in California with my in-laws. It is really important for me to connect with my immediate family and enjoy in-person, physical bonding time with them.
At night, my husband and I might go out for a simple meal. But if I am not too tired, I try to cook for him, as he loves home-cooked food and he is actually very easy to please.
He is my guinea pig. He ate the Japanese rice bowls I made and, recently, I prepared shakshuka, which he loved.
Even though I am quite new to many of the dishes I make, I have a bit of flair for cooking. My late mother was very good at cooking and my sister is very good as well, so I think I get my culinary talent from them.”
- Our Heart Of Care is available on mewatch.
