Prime Minister Han: "A Person Who Gains Happiness Through Sharing"
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo expressed his condolences on the 14th for the late Park Chun-ja, who was called the "Gimbap Grandma" for donating her entire fortune, earned from selling gimbap for over 50 years, to help those in need. He said, "We will long remember the footsteps of the deceased who shared warmth with the people."
In a post on Facebook that day, Prime Minister Han conveyed the late Park's activities during her lifetime and said he was solemn upon hearing the news of her passing, mourning that "she was someone who found happiness through sharing."
He added, "Although she had no biological children, there were as many as eleven people who called her 'Mom,'" and noted, "This was thanks to her raising intellectually disabled people without a place to go as if they were her own children for many years."
Grandmother Park Chun-ja, who donated her entire fortune earned from selling rice and volunteered for people with disabilities for 40 years, passed away on the 11th. Until the end, Grandmother Park donated her monthly rent deposit before leaving this world. [Image source=Yonhap News]
According to the Green Children Foundation, Park Grandma, born in 1929, started selling gimbap around the age of 10 near Gyeongseong Station (now Seoul Station), avoiding Japanese police crackdowns. She grew up under a single father and was unable to continue her studies after the first year of middle school.
After experiencing divorce and business failure around 1960, she resumed selling gimbap in an abandoned shack in Namhansanseong and eventually opened a gimbap shop. The value of the house she owned in the old Seongnam city area increased, allowing her to acquire a large sum of money.
Reflecting on her own difficult circumstances, she decided to help others and donated 330 million won to the Green Children Foundation in 2008 to support students who could not study due to their family situations.
In the same year, Park donated 300 million won to a convent for the construction of ‘Seongnam Small Jesus House,’ a residential facility for people with disabilities. In 2011, she also donated 10 million won to help children overseas in need.
Having cared for intellectually disabled people for 40 years, she bought commercial property with the money she saved after quitting the gimbap business and personally raised eleven intellectually disabled individuals with the income from the property.
Park Grandma moved out of her rented monthly house and entered a social welfare facility in 2021. She also promised in her will to donate the deposit of her rented house.
Earlier, the LG Welfare Foundation awarded Park Grandma the LG Hero Award in September 2021, and she donated the 50 million won prize money she received at that time.
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