California, USA & South Korea
IST 2021
My vision of the world was always enclosed in the world of my school or neighborhood, and my attention was often directed to my academics only, due to the atmosphere I lived in. However, thanks to the lectures I’ve attended, and the countless debates I had, whether they were informative or colloquial, I’ve learned there are countless solutions and ways to approach a problem.
I helped establish an unmanned Honor Store, named “The Vending Machine of Love.” Unlike other many international and public schools in Korea, our school does not have an in-school cafe or store for students to buy snacks or stationary items when needed other than temporary club sales. This problem we noticed immediately clicked with a solution to also help our local elderly center. “What if we establish a store within our school, and collect the funds to donate to the Silver Center?”
After countless discussions with the school’s dean, we finally succeeded in implementing our project plan. This store would be run unmanned 24/7 — meaning we would trust the students and teachers’ integrity in buying goods. After all, one of our school’s core values is integrity. The store would consist of a shelf stocked with snacks varying from cup noodles to tiny jelly candies, heat packs for the winter season, and stationary items that students often loose. Because we wanted this store to be accessible and friendly to people of all ages, we set up two means of payment — either through a transparent cash box where customers could see the donation money grow and possibly be motivated to donate, or through bank transfers.
Though we are keeping the store anonymous, we will be donating our funds to the Silver Center during early January under the name of our school instead of us. We hope to show gratitude of what we are gifted with as students, represent our school, and try to spread more positivity in times of the depressing pandemic.
Ambassador Year:
2021