Help Your Suwon (Week 1)

I would be lying if I said I was not nervous. Even hours before I headed out to Suwon Station, I was slightly worried that not many people would show up. Including myself, 5 people signed up. I told the NGO that I would bring about 7 people. What was worse was it suddenly got very cold from early morning and has been extremely windy. As much as I hate winter cold spell, it is just the perfect timing. On the day to launch the very first Help Your Suwon gathering, the cold spell dominates the region.

I headed out earlier than I needed to in order to navigate the area and to make sure there is a store where we can buy food. On the way to the station, the traffic jam was rampant because a soccer game just ended. Not helping.

After scouting the adjacent area, I headed to the rendezvous point and it was 5:50pm. No one was there. I knew that my friend Amanda was running late. So I just waited. Thankfully, the people that promised to show up appeared. After a little of chitchatting and breaking the ice session, we went to the store.

Buying food was somewhat difficult. For me, I was never in charge of handling money and thus it was my first time to estimate with a limited amount of money how much food I need to purchase. But I am Asian and thus good at math. Also, we managed to have some change (about 7,000 won). When it comes to money, it is always better to have some change and to have less than we need to or what we have. Years of experience of handling people's tax has taught me well.

Afterward, we went up to the office. It was a lot better than the one in Seoul Station. haha. Everyone lined up and bagged up the food. Toward the end of the process, the guy in charge showed up and I asked him to illustrate what the organization does for homeless. Such good people they are.

Finally, it was time to get down to the business. With our hands full of the bags of food, we headed back to the station, led by one worker from the organization. He was kind enough to talk to the homeless at the station and helped up to whom we should dole out the food. As I anticipated, many homeless people gathered around us and asked for food. We prepared about 50 bags, and it only took about 10 mins to consume them all. It was fast.

As I mentioned, it was a very cold day. But it must be colder to them. At the end of the day, we all go home and have a good night sleep. But they, every night, need to find to crash.. whether it is a subway station or vacated parking lot. At the end of the day, we'd rush to a convenient store and grab bags of chips or something to drink. But sometime they don't have anything to eat. At least back in summer, the homeless up at Seoul Station had many places to crash and did not need to worry about being frozen to death. And now it is winter. As much as the Christmas lightnings were shining the station, the coldness that the homeless feel and the coldness that pedestrians on the street cast on them would be sever than ever.

Help Your Suwon (Weekly Audit : Nov 20th 2011)

The donation aggregated : 60,000 won
The amount of purchase : 52,990 won
The balance : 7,010 won