News | October 1, 2026
2026 Sands for Singapore Charity Festival Raises More Than $5.5 Million for Local Charities
Marina Bay Sands’ 12th annual charity festival featured three days of entertainment, games, gourmet food and family fun to raise funds for and showcase the work of Singapore community service organizations. The event has generated more than $40 million for local causes since its inception in 2013.
On Aug. 28-30, Marina Bay Sands’ 2026 Sands for Singapore Charity Festival offered the community a spectacular three days of live music and dance performances, shopping-for-a-cause, and gourmet pop-ups and games – all with the purpose of raising funds for local charities.
Through events held during the 12th edition of the festival at Marina Bay Sands’ Event Plaza as well as in the eight weeks leading up to the event, fundraising activities and community engagements delivered more than $5.5 million to organizations that empower people with disabilities, uplift low-income families and support vulnerable communities.
In total, the festival’s cumulative contribution to local charitable causes since its inception in 2013 is $40 million, reflecting 12 years of collective giving and community partnership.
“We are deeply heartened by the generosity of the public, our Team Members and our partners in rallying behind charitable causes through the annual Sands for Singapore Charity Festival,” Paul Town, chief operating officer at Marina Bay Sands, said. “Hospitality is fundamentally about bringing people together, and we believe that ability can be harnessed to strengthen communities and create positive impact beyond our doors.”
Fundraising for the 2026 Sands for Singapore Charity Festival kicked off several weeks before the event with Dine for Good, a new campaign across 12 of Marina Bay Sands’ celebrity chef and signature restaurants. From Aug. 1-30, proceeds from 12 hallmark dishes, including Maison Boulud’s coq au vin and Yardbird’s chicken and waffles, were channeled to the AWWA Enabled Living @ Bedok program, a community co-living pilot launched in December 2025 to empower people with disabilities to live more independently within public rental housing. Diners were able to contribute simply by enjoying meals with friends and family.
Another new fundraising effort this year was Impact Match, a digital game specially created for this festival to raise awareness for NorthLight School, a specialized institute that provides future-ready and values-driven education to help young people thrive. Festivalgoers of all ages raced to match identical school supplies in rows or columns and assembled 1,088 digital school packs over three evenings at the Event Plaza.
These initiatives complemented returning programs such as the Good Bites Market, which delivered proceeds from five gourmet pop-ups at Marina Bay Sands to AWWA. The popular Giving Marketplace was reimagined with a boutique-inspired concept that gave 12 local nonprofits, social enterprises and small businesses a more curated and visually engaging space to showcase their crafts and share the stories behind their causes.
The new concept provided a more experiential avenue for visitors to discover purpose-driven brands while connecting with the communities they support. Proceeds were retained by participating organizations, which included APSN, a long-term Marina Bay Sands partner that offered handcrafted cookies made by apprentices with disabilities; ART:DIS, which offered lifestyle products and corporate gifts created by artists with disabilities; and The Shy Crafter, a small business that showcased whimsical earrings and miniature dinosaur sculptures.
Other pre-festival fundraising, community engagement and volunteer service activations by Marina Bay Sands Team Members included assembling 30,000 hygiene kits for vulnerable communities in Singapore and the Philippines through the annual Sands Cares Global Hygiene Kit Build. Team Members also created beaded wristlets led by seniors from Care Corner Singapore’s Active Ageing Centre and supported adults with intellectual disabilities from MINDS during an outing to ArtScience Museum’s teamLab Future World.
A central component of the Sands for Singapore Charity Festival is the Community Chest Heartstrings Walk and Race to the Sky Marathon, which Marina Bay Sands has co-organized with Community Chest since 2011. On the morning of Aug. 29, nearly 200 people participated in the Race to the Sky Vertical Marathon by climbing 57 stories to the iconic Sands SkyPark.
In the evening, around 3,700 people gathered for the Community Chest Heartstrings Walk, which followed a scenic route around Marina Bay. The leisurely walk raised funds for more than 300 social service programs and projects, benefiting over 94,000 users, including people with disabilities, at-risk youth, families and seniors in need, and people with mental health needs.
The annual Sands for Singapore Charity Festival is the cornerstone of Marina Bay Sands’ charitable efforts and part of the global Sands Cares community engagement program, which orchestrates philanthropic giving, nonprofit capacity-building and Team Member volunteerism to ensure Sands’ regions remain great places to live, work and visit.
To learn more about Sands Cares initiatives, read the company’s latest ESG report: https://www.sands.com/resources/reports/.
