Food Donations

[Anchor Lead]

Donations to food banks topped one trillion won last year. Food is received from not only corporations, but also individuals. There are a wide variety of ways for ordinary people to share food and give to charity.

[Pkg]

Some 200 people wearing Santa hats have gathered in the middle of the plaza. They're busy loading gift boxes onto the trucks. They are mobile food banks. These volunteers carrying a food box come to a semi-basement room. They take out all sorts of food for an old woman living by herself.

[Soundbite] (Food Bank Volunteer) : "This is soup and rice. All you need to do is pour in water. This is gochujang. (How can I eat all this?)"

An auction is in full swing at this wholesale produce market. A refrigerator stands at one corner of the market. It's the so-called "sharing refrigerator," which was set up so that the merchants can donate produce. Merchants keep filling up the fridge with charity goods...and the donated vegetables are headed to the needy people in local communities.

[Soundbite] "They're fresh and look really delicious."

Bowls of steaming noodles made with fresh ingredients warm the bodies and souls of these people in need. Food donations to food banks are now made by individual donors, in addition to corporations. It shows that the ways people give donations have grown more diversified. This owner of a fried chicken restaurant is one of those individual donors. Before he begins business, he first fries a batch of chickens to be donated. There are people waiting for his chickens.

[Soundbite] Byeon Jeong-eun (Social Worker) : "I deliver them to the children in after-school programs and to senior citizens."

Thanks to unknown donors, this rice urn for the needy has never been empty. This is another type of food bank for those desperate for even a handful of rice.

[Soundbite] Bae Sang-wook : "Lots of people leave the rice in secret. They pour the rice ins or just leave the rice outside when the urn is full."

More people are making charitable donations in various ways, as people's ideas of donation is changing from giving leftovers to sharing something they have.