Family joins large-sum donors’ club

A whole family has joined a club of large-sum donors for the first time.

According to the Community Chest of Korea on Tuesday, Kang Soo-jin, 41, and her son Won Sung-joon, 16, pledged to donate 100 million won ($92,000) each to the charity fundraiser, joining Kang’s husband Won Young-sik.

With the pledges, Kang and Won Sung-joon have become the 193rd and 194th members of the Community Chest of Korea’s Honor Society, which consists of those who donated or pledged to donate 100 million won or more within a year.

Won Young-sik joined the society in 2009 after donating about 10 million won every month. He has donated around 550 million won in total to the Community Chest of Korea since August 2007.

Every year since then, he has thrown a party for elderly people living in the central district of Jung-gu in Seoul in honor of his late mother.

“From my childhood, my mother taught me: If you earn 10, give your neighbors three,” Won said to officials of the fundraiser when he joined the club in 2009. “Since I began to donate, I have felt at ease and my business has worked out.”

He runs a financial investment company.

In July, he donated to the Community Chest of Korea and disadvantaged neighbors living in Jung-gu the prize money he had received from a Blue Dragon Service award jointly given by the National Police Agency and a local newspaper.

“People say the sharing of love goes viral. It may be true. Thanks to my living with my husband, I have naturally joined the club of large-sum donors,” Won’s wife Kang said at the donation pledge ceremony on Tuesday. “I will try to put sharing into action at any possible time and place.”

“Parents’ donation is a more valuable lesson to children than any good words,” son Sung-joon said. “I’d love to participate in community services, large or small, in the capacity of a student.”

The Honor Society has a father and his son, a mother and her daughter, and two married couples as its members, but it is the first time for a whole family to join the club.

As of Tuesday, the club had 194 members and 21.6 billion won in accumulated pledges.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)