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| Pastor Park Jong-hwan, founder of Nanumi Korea Incorporated Association serves free meals to homeless people. Courtesy of Nanumi Korea |
By Lee Han-na
Uber Eats Korea will team up with the Nanumi Korea Incorporated Association and crowdfunding platform GIVE.kr to serve meals to about 400 homeless people at Seoul Station, Sunday.
Nanumi, established in 2014 by Rev. Park Jong-hwan, is a nonprofit organization that helps homeless people and low-income families by volunteering and raising money from the public.
Pastor Park and his wife Kim Hae-yen have been taking care of homeless people for about 20 years, although the organization was only legally acknowledged in 2014. About three times a week, his wife, Kim serves meals to hundreds of homeless people. During wintertime, they also provide shelter for them to help keep them safe from the freezing winter weather.
To celebrate the "fifth anniversary" of their charity group, the Park couple had planned to serve about 300 meal boxes of Bon Dosirak. But their tight budget was a hurdle in implementing the goal. They had to find sponsors who were willing to pay for 200 meal boxes. The couple collaborated with GIVE.kr, a crowd funding platform, to raise enough money to buy the meal boxes.
The funds raised through the crowd funding were more than enough. John Kim, the founder and COO of GIVE.kr, shared the unique story behind the funds. "ARMY (the fandom of BTS) from America donated about $3,000 through our website. They were called Bangtan Moms and Noonas. That helped us to provide more meals, which we believe, can serve about 400," he said.
A domino effect came after that with a helping hand from another partner. Uber Eats Korea expressed its willingness to take part in the campaign and contributed two vans that could deliver the meal boxes to Seoul Station.
The anniversary event will take place at Dongja Art Hall at 5 p.m. and about 25 volunteers, including students, will attend to distribute meals to the homeless people.
The organizers said they still need more volunteers to serve meals to the homeless. Those who are interested can contact the organizers at 02)771-8004 or email khy961@hanmail.net.
Information about donations for Nanumi events is available on its website https://kr.give.asia/campaign/jjmsignups.
Lee Han-na is a Korea Times intern.
