As record-breaking heat advisories continue, Lotte retail affiliates will join Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association to provide relief supplies and nourishing meals for people vulnerable to extreme heat.
The relief packages, which include fans, various heat-prevention items and essential groceries, will be delivered to about 600 people, including elderly people living alone in jjokbang housing and low-income households who are especially vulnerable to the heat. In addition, the companies plan to prepare and distribute nourishing meals for about 800 people to mark Chobok, the first of the three hottest days of summer.
The support effort is based on a tripartite memorandum of understanding on a public-private disaster relief partnership that Lotte retail affiliates signed in 2018 with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and Hope Bridge Korea Disaster Relief Association. Over five years from 2018 to 2022, the affiliates contributed 600 million won a year, or 3 billion won in total, and have provided relief supplies and healing buses for counseling whenever national disasters such as wildfires and floods occurred. Even after the agreement expired, they have kept an emergency relief system on standby and have stepped in with immediate material support when disasters strike.
Meanwhile, 7-Eleven signed an agreement on July 14 at Sejong City Hall to expand the operation of cooling and warming shelters.
Under the agreement, 36 7-Eleven stores in Sejong City will be newly designated as cooling and warming shelters. 7-Eleven plans to closely manage the designated stores and provide comfortable resting spaces where citizens and vulnerable residents who visit the stores to escape the heat can sit down, take a break and cool off at any time. Sejong City will support the effort with promotional campaigns to encourage use of the shelters and administrative assistance, including placing cooling-shelter signs on the front of the stores so they are easy to recognize. The 36 stores covered by the agreement will begin serving as cooling shelters now and are also expected to function as warming shelters in the coming winter, offering a place of warmth.
Kim So-hyeong, compact@sportschosun.com
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
