Hwaseong-si, Leading Gyeonggi Province in Hometown Love Donation Collection Amount

3,794 Participants Last Year... 350 Million Won Raised
City Plans to Expand Return Gifts from 29 to 59 Items This Year

Last year, Hwaseong City was identified as the local government in Gyeonggi Province with the highest amount of hometown love donation funds collected.

Hwaseong City announced on the 5th that the amount of hometown love donation funds collected throughout last year totaled 358,959,000 KRW. This is more than four times the initial target of 80 million KRW set at the beginning of the year, making it the highest amount among local governments in Gyeonggi Province.

The hometown love donation system is a program where individuals donate to local governments, which then use the funds to improve residents' welfare. It was first implemented nationwide on January 1st last year across 243 local governments. Donations can be made to any local government other than the donor’s place of residence, and full tax deductions apply to donations of 100,000 KRW or less. Additionally, local governments provide donors with thank-you gifts such as local specialties, up to 30% of the donation amount.

According to the city, a total of 3,794 people donated hometown love funds to Hwaseong City last year. Of these, more than 95% were small donors contributing 100,000 KRW or less.

The city explained that donations were especially concentrated in November and December, the year-end period, and analyzed that many office workers commuting from nearby local governments to Hwaseong City participated in the donations.

To promote the hometown love donation system, the city provided 29 types of thank-you gifts last year and plans to offer donors an even wider variety of local specialties as gifts this year.

To this end, in December last year, the city selected 59 types of hometown love donation thank-you gifts, including Suchangmi rice and grape wine, through an open recruitment process. The city plans to sign agreements with suppliers and register the thank-you gifts on the hometown love e-site.

Jung Myung-geun, mayor of Hwaseong City, said, "We will use the donation funds for projects that secure the future of Hwaseong City so that the donors’ intentions are not in vain."

Meanwhile, hometown love donations can be made through the 'Hometown Love e-um' website and at branches of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation and Nonghyup Bank nationwide.

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