By: James Ahn, News Writer

For low-income families and elderly people living alone, surviving the cold winter of Korea is no trivial task. Briquettes of Love is an organization committed to delivering coal briquettes to people in need. These briquettes are essential items those people need to stay warm and safe through winter.

Last month, on November 29, some 40 volunteers from GSIS had the heart-warming opportunity to be part of Briquettes of Love’s effort to deliver briquettes. Mr. Ahn, school Assistant Business Administrator said there was a small truck and a few carts to bring the briquettes to the site. He also added, the volunteers will donate briquettes to five families in Soha-dong in Kwangmyung-shi. A total of 1,500 briquettes were delivered on that day by eager students and teachers.

The volunteers stood in a single file and delivered briquettes by successively passing a briquette at a time to the next person. Despite the cold outside temperature of -5 C, everybody was happy to be there and enjoyed the time of sharing and love.

“To raise funds for this cause, we sold snacks and beverages at school lunch time,” said Samantha Kim, a student leader. “The school also pitched in. We wanted to do something to help and hope elderly people have a warm winter.”

“I think I donated about four briquettes. When I was passing the briquette around, I really felt cold and tired,” commented John Park, sophomore. “But, I really wanted the less fortunate to be warm in the cold weather.”

Last year, according to Jiyun Chae, manager at Briquettes of Love, a total of 1 million briquettes were delivered to 3,000 families in the metropolitan Seoul area by 20,000 volunteers from 500 organizations. Ms. Chae expressed concern over dwindling donations despite the increasing number of volunteers.

For more information on the Briquette delivery, refer to the MBC Briquette News Report link embedded here.