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[NEWS] Weekly Market Held Every Wednesday

2022-01-05 1,135

Members of Sahmyook University Church and wives of the faculty are the drawing attention of many with their weekly bazaar to raise funds for scholarships. The amount of scholarship funds they have raised so far is as much as several hundred million won.

SU Church’s Dorcas Society has recently donated scholarship funds of 20 million won, marking the accumulated amount of scholarship funds at 622 million won.

The Dorcas Society of SU Church, formed in the 1960s, is a community service group run by the church members. The group is named after Dorcas, a Biblical character known for her lifetime of service and good deeds for others.

The devoted group holds the Wednesday Bazaar for Scholarship Fundraising every Wednesday in front of the gymnasium on campus. The members personally go out to agricultural and marine products wholesale markets or local farmhouses to get fresh organic produce.

As the news that the bazaar offers cheap yet reliable agricultural goods and that the profit is donated for scholarship funds went viral, the weekly event began to be called the “Dorcas Market” and became a local specialty.

So far, from the total scholarship funds they have raised amounting to 622 million won, funds have benefitted as many as 911 students since the year 2001, when the counting of scholarship funds began. Every year, based on recommendations by departments, the group selects and helps about 50 students who are academically outstanding and/or in financial need.

Along with the scholarship fundraising, the SU Church Dorcas Society extends help to children of families without parents, or seniors who have no one to rely on, as well as offering voluntary services at sanitariums, senior care centers, and prisons. To this end, they collect separate membership fees or accept support of benefactors who share the same goal.

“It touches my heart every time when graduates come and express gratitude, saying that they were able to continue studying thanks to the Dorcas Scholarship,” Yu Yeong-hwan, President of the SU Church Dorcas Society said. “We just hope that this fund continues to help struggling students and be used in nurturing excellent, contributing leaders of our society,” he added.

◇ Sahmyook Sarang Shop’s Scholarship’s Cumulative Fund Breaks 100 Million Won

Sahmyook Sarang Shop, a volunteering group of wives of professors at Sahmyook University, has recently donated 30 million won to the university for school development and scholarships for students. The cumulative amount of donations so far is 120 million won.

Sahmyook Sarang Shop also holds a bazaar every Wednesday for raising scholarship funds. The group has been selling sponsored goods from various fields of society and donating the entire profit as scholarship funds for students since 2013.

Since last year, the group also began helping out those foreign students who are unnoticed and neglected in the pandemic era. Specifically, for the past 3 semesters, they have supported 27 students from Vietnam, China, India, the Philippines, Iraq, and Cameroon with a total scholarship of 15.2 million won.

The scholarship fund is greatly benefiting these struggling foreign students because they are not eligible for the Korean government scholarships, the part-time job market is virtually closed due to the COVID-19 crisis, and also because their families in their home countries are suffering economic difficulties.

President Kwon Yeong-sun of the Sahmyook Sarang Shop said, “Many foreign students experience financial difficulties to the extent that they have to work part-time and yet cannot pay their tuition in lump-sum but only in 3 or 4 installments.” She added, “We are thankful that we could be of an immediate help in their hardest times, and we hope that they will grow into great and capable members of society when they go back to their countries.”

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