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The weather is getting chillier, but the spirit of giving seems even colder this winter. Many of us are having a difficult time weathering the freezing conditions.
According to an official count, 1.53 million households earn a monthly income of less than W460,000 (US$1=W1,448), which is the minimum level necessary to maintain a living. On top of this, 930,000 senior citizens live alone, 560,000 households are led by disabled Koreans, and there are 1.44 million single-parent families and 1,630 households of children without parents. Also, around 4,500 people live on the streets. The number of households with their main bread-earner currently unemployed has risen from 2.56 million in 2007 to 2.69 million today. Hidden behind each of those numbers are sad and painful stories.
Small donations are said to be trickling in to charity organizations. Of the W20 billion in donations collected by charity group Good Neighbors this year, 93 percent came from individual donors, up from 88 percent last year. The Community Chest of Korea says it has received 47,600 calls from Dec. 1 to 9 on its automated number that collects W2,000 a call (ARS 02-6262-3000). That is more than a four-fold rise compared to last year (11,200 calls).
The number of individual donors making small donations of less than W100,000 is said to have risen 40 percent. One donor, a father in his 30s, donated the money he intended to spend on his child¡¯s first birthday, with a note saying he plans to show the receipt to his child when he grows older. There¡¯s the office worker in his 40s who donated his W100,000 gas rebate. There¡¯s also a farmer in South Chungcheong Province who sent in W100,000 he saved by cutting the price of his wife¡¯s birthday gift. And an office worker in Seoul donated W200,000 from his first ever paycheck. Times are tough for everyone, but these people still donated money knowing there are needier people.
A W10,000 donation means the world to someone living under harsher conditions. The 1 kg of rice and 5 coal briquettes that can be bought for W2,000 raised by a single call on the aforementioned ARS number mean a meal and a warm room for those truly in need.
Understanding the value of donations ordinary people make despite their tightened purse strings, charity groups should strive to do their job better. They must ensure transparency in how their donations are being spent to assuage potential donors. It makes no sense to weigh the tax deduction rate on donations made to one charity versus another. We must make different charity groups compete with each other in terms of the amount of money they raise through donations. And charity groups should not give the impression that their top positions are open for jockeying by well-connected people.
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