Supporting Crop Harvest with Local Community for Labor-Shortage Farms
Direct Purchase of Local Produce and Delivery to Multicultural and Single-Parent Families
Friends Talent Volunteer Group under POSCO Gwangyang Steelworks (Director Lee Dong-ryeol) delivered warmth to the local community by conducting a multicultural family and single-parent family local agricultural product sharing project together with Gwangyang City on the 8th at Daeri Village, Okgok-myeon, Gwangyang City.
The 'Local Agricultural Product Sharing Project' has been carried out by the Friends Talent Volunteer Group of Gwangyang Steelworks since June 2020 for five years to deliver local agricultural products to neighbors in need and to help farms experiencing labor shortages due to the aging population.
The Gwangyang Steelworks Friends Volunteer Group is helping with the potato harvest in Daeri Village, Okgok-myeon, Gwangyang City. Photo by Gwangyang Steelworks
About 70 members of the Friends Talent Volunteer Group of Gwangyang Steelworks, Jeong In-hwa, Mayor of Gwangyang, Kim Hee-bong, Head of Production Technology Department at Gwangyang Steelworks, the Talent Wing (We-ing) Youth Volunteer Group, Gaya Lions members, multicultural families, and about 150 volunteers from citizens, institutions, and companies rolled up their sleeves for the local community.
The 150 volunteers gathered at Daeri Village, Okgok-myeon, visited elderly households including seniors living alone despite the hot weather, and took on potato harvesting, sorting, and packaging work with work clothes and hoes they had prepared themselves.
In particular, after the volunteer labor assistance activity ended, the Friends Talent Volunteer Group of Gwangyang Steelworks attracted attention by leading the revitalization of the local farm economy by purchasing the agricultural products they personally harvested.
The Friends Talent Volunteer Group purchased a total of 150 boxes of potatoes (worth about 5.7 million KRW) for their neighbors, and the purchased agricultural products were delivered to multicultural families and single-parent families in need of assistance.
With this agricultural product donation, the total value of agricultural products donated by the Friends Talent Volunteer Group to the local community over the past five years has reached approximately 35 million KRW.
A resident of Daeri Village said, “Recently, the number of young people settling in farms has decreased, and the older generation is aging, causing labor shortages and many difficulties in harvesting agricultural products,” and added, “We express our gratitude to the volunteers who came to help the farms despite the difficult conditions of rain and heat.”
Meanwhile, Gwangyang Steelworks is leading a beautiful journey with the local community by carrying out various volunteer activities such as △cherry blossom outings for elderly dementia patients △providing health care programs for local seniors △joint volunteer activities with sister villages △joint weddings for multicultural families.
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