On one random day in October, few friends and I were casually conversing about the elderly center near our school called the Hagye Silver Center. As the COVID-19 pandemic was worsening in Korea, we wanted to find ways in which we could help alleviate the effects of COVID-19 in our community.
Our conversation got more serious as we got together to actually initiate a new project. We observed our school’s facilities, and discussed about any realistic ways we could help the Hagye Silver Center and hopefully our school simultaneously within the capabilities of high school students.
Unlike other many international and public schools in Korea, our school does not have an in-school cafe or store for students to buy snacks or stationary items when needed other than temporary club sales.
This problem we noticed immediately clicked with a solution to be somewhat of a help to the elderly center. “What if we establish a store within our school, and collect the funds to donate to the Silver Center?”
As a school store should be present to support students when they are in need of an eraser or a quick sugar recharge, we wanted to meet the needs of students, teachers, and help the elderly center since they were starting to close due to the pandemic exacerbating.
After countless discussions with the school’s dean, we finally succeeded in implementing our project plan, which we named it “The Vending Machine of Love”. This store would be run unmanned 24/7 — meaning we would trust the students and teachers’ integrity in buying goods. After all, one of our school’s core values was Integrity.
The store would consist of a shelf stocked with snacks varying from cup noodles to tiny jelly candies, heat packs for the winter season, and stationary items that students often lost. Because we wanted this store to be accessible and friendly to people of all ages, we set up two means of paying — either through a transparent cash box where customers could be motivated to see the donation money grow and possibly donate, or through bank transfers.
Despite it being only 1 1/2 months since our store opened, we earned a total of 84,420 KRW (in cash). Most of our profit was earned through bank transfers, but we will be using the money earned through the bank transfers for re-stocking our inventory.
Though we are keeping the store anonymous, we will be donating our funds to the Silver Center during early January under the name of our school instead of us three. We hope to show gratitude of what we are gifted with as students, represent our school, and try to spread more positivity in times of the depressing pandemic.
– Joanna Kim, December 30th, 2021, 10:30PM KST –
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