Starbucks Donates Over 960 Million Won to Santa Barista Hope Fund

At the '2021 Santa Barista Hope Fund Presentation Ceremony' held on the 15th at the Starbucks Support Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, Song Hoseop, CEO of Starbucks (third from the right), Lee Jehoon, Chairman of the Green Umbrella Children's Foundation (third from the left), and Kim Sujin, Miss Korea 2021 (second from the left), are taking a commemorative photo.

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Starbucks Coffee Korea held the ‘2021 Santa Barista Hope Fund Delivery Ceremony’ on the 15th at the Starbucks Support Center to support underprivileged children and youth at the end of the year, delivering a total of approximately 960 million KRW in hope funds to the Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation.

At the fund delivery ceremony, Starbucks CEO Ho-seop Song, Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation Chairman Je-hoon Lee, Miss Korea, who is a publicity ambassador for the Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation, and Starbucks partners attended. The event was conducted with a minimal number of people in consideration of safety and in accordance with quarantine guidelines.

Since 2006, Starbucks has been conducting the Santa Barista campaign every year at the end of the year in collaboration with the Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation, raising funds with customer participation. This year, considering the social distancing situation, instead of holding a separate customer fundraising event, Starbucks delivered 2,500 gift sets along with funds raised through activities with customers and partners over the past year, expressing the hope that children would have a warmer year-end, thereby replacing the meaningful year-end donation activity.

The 2021 Santa Barista fund was raised by combining a 100 million KRW cultural and artistic talent support fund created to encourage the cultural and artistic industry, which had been depressed due to social distancing, Starbucks employee donations collected through the Hope Delivery campaign throughout the year, and youth talent development funds raised over one year at the Community Store Daehakro branch, a profit-sharing store. Since 2006, the funds delivered by Starbucks to underprivileged children and youth at the end of the year have accumulated to approximately 5.4 billion KRW to date.

Starbucks CEO Ho-seop Song said, “For 16 years, we have continued small but meaningful steps to lead positive changes in the local community for children and youth in need,” adding, “We will continue to carry out various social contribution activities in cooperation with the local community, including year-end fundraising activities.”

Meanwhile, since 2013, Starbucks has been conducting a regular sponsorship postcard campaign in collaboration with the Green Umbrella Children’s Foundation, allowing customers to directly participate in supporting underprivileged children through regular sponsorship postcards placed in stores. The total number of sponsors to date is 5,956, and the amount supported through the sponsors exceeds 100 million KRW per month.

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