Dongdaemun-gu Secures 961 Dream Tree Card Merchants to Resolve Meal Service Gaps

Providing Healthy Meals to Food-Insecure Children Through Accessibility and Nutrition Improvements... Utilizing COVID-19 Hope Job Workers at 961 Franchise Locations, the Most Among Seoul's Autonomous Districts

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] Dongdaemun-gu (Mayor You Deok-yeol) has taken proactive steps to protect children's rights by expanding affiliated stores for the Child Meal Card (Kkum Namu Card) to address meal gaps among vulnerable children.

The Child Meal Card is a child meal support program that provides meals to children under 18 who are at risk of missing meals due to difficult economic circumstances such as parental unemployment, funded by city and district budgets. Previously, children using the Child Meal Card mainly relied on convenience stores due to a lack of affiliated stores.

Accordingly, Dongdaemun-gu has actively secured affiliated stores to improve accessibility for children using the Child Meal Card and to offer them balanced meals with diverse menus.

The district conducted a survey targeting 1,300 Child Meal Card users in the area and, based on the results, initially secured 114 restaurants as affiliated stores.

Additionally, by utilizing five COVID-19 Hope Job personnel since last October to promote children's rights and actively encourage store affiliation, the number of affiliated stores has significantly increased to 961.

This is the highest number among Seoul's autonomous districts.

Dongdaemun-gu plans to expand its meal support infrastructure by securing a total of 18 group meal facilities where cooking is possible within local child program operation sites, continuously discovering and expanding affiliated restaurants that children can widely use.

Affiliated stores where the Child Meal Card can be used can be identified by the sticker attached in front of the restaurant and the QR code on the back of the Child Meal Card.

You Deok-yeol, Mayor of Dongdaemun-gu, stated, “Expanding the choices for children using the Child Meal Card to provide more diverse meals will help improve the nutrition of growing children. We will continue to do our best to create a city where children are happy and respected.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.