food bank
“I’ve been worried since the evening. How do you do it, Oliver?”
“I know. But there’s no way, what can I do? I’ve been looking all day and there’s no job. I think we should go to the food bank.”
“ha… … You have to wait all day to get it from the food bank. Yesterday there were over a thousand people in line.”
“Sorry. me too. Anyway, I have no choice but to go out and stand in line… … .”
Oliver, the head of the family, left the house with droopy shoulders and walked to a nearby food bank.
It’s been a month since I lost my job. All the money I had saved was gone, and unemployment benefits alone are hardly enough to cover the necessary expenses.
If I wanted to paste the paste on the mouths of the family right now, I had to wait several hours to get even a few days’ worth of food from the food bank.
“Oh My God! This isn’t something we’re going to have to wait hours for!”
However, when Oliver arrived at the food bank, he was completely tired of seeing the endless queues.
There was an endless line of people who couldn’t tell if it was a thousand or ten thousand people.
Those directly affected by the corona virus are ordinary people, as always.
As businesses close due to the corona virus, the number of unemployed is on the rise, and unlike in Korea, Americans do not have a saving culture, so unemployment is bound to be directly linked to hunger.
Official statistics show that 40% of Americans say they don’t even have $400 in cash for an emergency fund, so it’s enough to predict that even one month of unemployment could lead to a major household crisis.
Thanks to the food banks provided by numerous charitable organizations, not a few citizens were able to escape hunger.
“Oliver! Are you here too?”
Reluctantly, I am standing at the end of that long line, and a colleague who was cut off at work comes along and pretends to know me.
“Are you here too? Pablo?”
“Well, it can’t be helped. I have to eat to live. haha.”
“The lines are terribly long.”
“I think half of the people in Chicago are here.”
“I don’t know half, but there must be a lot of it.”
Oliver was getting tired of seeing the procession where he didn’t know where it would end.
“Are you the first?”
“uh. Well, yes.”
“There is nothing to be so embarrassed about. Because everyone is the same these days. haha.”
The problem was that even the middle class, who had never been taken care of by a food bank, became unemployed due to the corona crisis and are being rushed to the food bank.
In the two weeks of March alone, 10 million jobs were lost in the United States.
Even considering their families, tens of millions of starving citizens have been created.
There were long lines in front of food banks not only in Chicago, but everywhere in the United States.
The road in front of a food bank in Philadelphia was reported to have been reported in the media for kilometers of cars lined up.
“Isn’t that why you can’t get food?”
Oliver was a little nervous because he was queuing at the food bank for the first time in his life.
His concerns are not unfounded. Already in the news, reports of people waiting in line at the food bank and not getting food rations were coming up.
In fact, the U.S. food bank system was facing a major threat due to the corona crisis.
In general, food banks receive donations of foods that have a long shelf life but are difficult to distribute in the market, thanks to corporate sponsorship, and distribute them for free.
And in the current corona crisis, the number of people who want food from food banks is increasing exponentially, but the supply has not been smooth.
That’s because many of the companies’ restaurants that had been charitable to the food bank were closed, and supply chain problems began to arise.
Because of that, reports were coming in that numerous food banks were struggling with lack of funds.
Moreover, even volunteers serving in food banks are in short supply.
Many people contracted the corona virus, or did not go out because they were afraid of getting infected.
On the one hand, there was an increasing number of discarding crops that had been carefully produced on the farm.
This is because, as restaurants and businesses have closed and demand has decreased, they have been forced into a situation where they have to tractor their hard-grown crops with tears in their eyes to prevent the agricultural products from rotting.
Thus, the food situation in the United States was discordant in terms of supply, demand, and distribution.
“Today is fine. There is enough supply in the food bank.”
“uh? Really?”
Oliver, who mustered up the courage to line up at the food bank, was relieved by Pablo’s words.
“okay. It sounds like a great philanthropist has appeared.”
“A philanthropist?”
“okay. An Asian in New York.”
“Eugene Khan?”
Among Americans these days, when someone thinks of an Asian in New York, they tend to think of one person. The man with the most money in the world who came from some Asian country.
Of course, some have more information, but for the majority of Americans they had just that.
“okay. That ‘Khan’. Cannes in New York.”
In fact, since his surname is ‘Gang’, if he sang it a little loudly, he would become ‘Kang’ or ‘Khan’, and thanks to Genghis Khan, the venerable king of the East in the West, Eugene was sometimes called just ‘Khan’.
Eventually, the nickname ‘Khan of New York’ came to be called as much as the nickname ‘Asian of New York’.
“He said he donated a billion dollars to Feeding America a few days ago.”
“What? One billion dollars at a time? After all, he’s the richest man in the world, so that’s good enough.”
“right? They said that Feeding America gave all the money they needed this year. So if you stand in line for a while, you won’t have to worry about starving.”
“Wheeyu. I’m glad. I was worried that if I didn’t bring this, I would have to starve from today.”
Pablo makes a similar expression as he taps Oliver’s shoulder, sighing in relief.
“So do I. If I don’t get this, maybe I’ll have to sell my trading card?”
“You mean that treasure? Mint-class Morales?”
“uh. You should be able to get 800 dollars now. haha.”
“it… … I’m glad I didn’t sell it.”
Oliver knows how much Pablo cares for the cards of his native Major Leaguer Morales.
“So that’s it. So you don’t know how grateful I am to Khan right now. huh.”
“ah… … right. So do I. If I hadn’t gotten this tonight, I’d have had to sell something.”
Oliver remembered himself contemplating what to sell to get some quick money before standing in line here.
There was also a MacBook on the list, which he needed to find a job.
That night. Olive and Pablo did not have to sell their cherished treasures or starve their most precious families.
And the Cannes of New York, which saved them from hunger during the most difficult times, could be a little more deeply engraved on them all.
* * *
“How much money do you have? Are you going to spend more than $10 billion this year on food banks in the US alone?”
“It looks like that. It seems that they are not only donating to food bank groups, but also supporting farms that are experiencing economic threats. We will solve everything from purchasing crops from farms that have to be plowed because there is no supply source, to supplying raw materials to food factories that are in financial trouble, to produce food and supply it to food banks.”
“Awesome. Is that possible in this short time?”
The New York Times editorial board was holding a meeting to publish an article about coronavirus and food banks.
“Yes. It has already begun to focus on philanthropy two years ago, and now it seems that they have already created the largest charitable organization in the United States. They said that it is not just an ordinary group of volunteers, but an elite organization that has gathered talented people from global corporations and government departments. As soon as the corona crisis broke out, the policy was lowered there. We have prepared a way to help if the number of unemployed increases due to the prolonged corona virus. That’s already January. The time was rather sufficient.”
“Great. What were you doing at the White House back then?”
“Nothing happened. No, were you fighting the Senate?”
“What were the Democrats doing?”
“I was busy swearing at Trump.”
“under… … how… … .”
Every time the reporter’s coverage was revealed, exclamations erupted from somewhere.
The scale of charity was beyond imagination, and the method of charity was reasonable and specific.
Above all, anyone could not help but stick their tongue out at the insight that foresaw this.
“How on earth can you do this so perfectly?”
“So, wouldn’t it be possible to become the richest person in the world?”
“But you know what’s really fun?”
“What?”
“The fact is that the person who has benefited the most from this coronavirus pandemic is that Eugene Khan himself.”
At the reporter’s words, the editor-in-chief lets out a small sigh.
“yes? ah! That’s right! okay. You said you made a big profit from the drop this week?”
“Estimated at least hundreds of billions of dollars.”
“Hundreds of billions?”
“That’s the minimum I took. Only in the domestic stock market. Some say that if you add foreign stocks and other derivatives, it could be over $1 trillion.”
“A trillion dollars? In just two months?”
“Honestly, no one seems to know. In any case, it is certainly an unusual size.”
The editor, who was surprised for a moment, quickly nodded his head.
“Well, looking at the process of applying to this food bank, it’s understandable. Seeing the same incident as everyone else, he was looking ahead a few numbers, right? What if it was your own business?”
“Yes.”
“Okay… … I’m sorry.”
“What are you missing?”
“American… … No, I should have been a white American born.”
“ah! haha. Even so, entrepreneurs going to the White House… … Are you still seeing the results?”
The reporter quickly realized the editor’s intentions.
“Even if you’re an entrepreneur, it’s unreasonable to put them on the same line.”
“Anyway, I have no choice. You have to be born in the United States.”
“okay. So, okay. Please write this article properly.”
“Of course.”
The next day, the New York Times published a food bank article, dedicated to Eugene’s role and the scale of his charity.
Of course, this time, he omitted the story of how he made a huge profit due to the corona pandemic.
There was no reason to even raise scratches on what had already been decided to float.
And starting with that, almost all media started posting small or large articles about Eugene’s food bank business.
[Cannes in New York feeds Americans.]
[Asian tycoon in New York donates $10 billion to a food bank.]
[Eugene Khan, serving food for 10 billion people.]
[A rich man who feeds 10 billion people. King of New York.]
Of course, it goes without saying that a considerable amount of advertising cost was set behind most of such articles.
The corona pandemic has also had a significant impact on the media market. The media, who were struggling with the immediate decline in advertisements, were able to take a breather thanks to Eugene’s funds flowing to the point where they did not know where the end was.