A Beautiful Sharing

“Loving community members in need seems to be really contagious to others.”

It has been 13 days since the campaign, “2005 Hope for Neighbors,” was launched. The staff of the Community Chest of Korea, an organization in charge of collecting and operating national donations for the poor, is happy to reveal heartwarming stories.

“Anonymous angels” who have made donations under their loved ones’ and friends’ names kept standing in line to help others.

On December 2, the second day of the campaign, hand-in-hand with his wife, a middle-aged man walked into the headquarters of the organization in Migeun-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. “I happened to possess a good round sum of money. Please use it for poor adolescent heads of families,” said he, making a generous donation of 15 million won. Asked to reveal his name and address, he only replied, “I am an employee in a public library, aged 46,” looking uncomfortable with the attention and quickly left.

On December 6, a 40-something man also visited the office. “The couple who were here a couple of days ago are my good friends. I happened to acknowledge they had secretly conducted a good deed. He recommended me to do the same. So, I came here,” said he, donating 10 million won. He persistently refused to reveal his identity.

On the following day, another mid-aged man appeared at the office, claiming, “My friend who came here yesterday said he left his receipt here; so, I came here on his behalf.” After receiving his friend’s receipt, he said, “I decided to carry out good conduct following his good intentions,” providing 29 million won.

An office worker, aged 30, at a company in Seoul donated 200,000 won under his girlfriend’s name, aged 29, who works at the same office, asking, “Please do not release any information on me to the outside, just send the receipt and a thank-you letter to my girlfriend as a surprise gift.”

This anonymous donation spree is spreading quietly throughout the nation

Salvation Army officer Choi Seong-hwan in Gwangju Youngmoon Office said, “Since the story of a man in his mid 50s, who has kept inserting a one million won check into a charity pot at the Gwangju Post Office in Chungjangro, Dong-gu, Gwangju on December 23 every year, since 1999, was unveiled, a man in his 40s along with his family has donated one million won in the second consecutive year since 2002, joining the donation spree.”

The Community Chest of Korea set this year’s target, from December 1 to January 31 next year, at 98.1 billion won, half of which has been successfully collected as of Monday, with the total collection standing at 45.3 billion won.

Jong-Hoon Lee Seung-Ho Jung taylor55@donga.com shjung@donga.com