Jang Bong-sok, 5, awaits discharge from Dong Hwa University Hospital in Pusan, South Korea, after surgery Jan. 17 to correct deafness. With him are Ju Yang-suk, left, and her husband, Ahn Jin-son, lay Catholics who operate Isaac’s House, a home for abused and abandoned children in Pusan. Members of Pusan’s U.S. military community are trying to raise money to help pay for an operation on the boy’s other ear. (Anthony Gray / Courtesy of U.S. Army)
Workers at the U.S. Army’s Pusan Storage Facility are mounting a fresh effort to raise money to help a partially deaf South Korean youngster hear in both ears.
The boy, Jang Bong-sok, 5, whom doctors say likely was deaf at birth, received a successful high-tech hearing aid implant in his right ear Jan. 17 at Pusan’s Dong Hwa University Hospital.
But he needs the same operation, known as a cochlear implant, in his left ear.
To help, Pusan Storage Facility’s workers have a second effort under way aimed at raising about $1,000 toward the boy’s medical costs, said John Batchelor, PSF deputy commander.
The total still needed is $15,000, said Anthony Gray, Catholic coordinator at Camp Hialeah in Pusan.
Last fall, PSF members, some 90 percent of whom are South Koreans, raised $1,100 toward the first implant operation. Camp Hialeah community members also raised funds, bringing to $5,500 the total the U.S. military community donated toward the $30,000 operation.
“The PSF folks haven’t forgotten that and they still have Bong-sok in their hearts and they realize that he still needs another implant,” Gray said.
Those steps were part of a larger fund-raising drive started by the home for abused and abandoned children where Bong-sok has lived since age 3.
This time, PSF plans a raffle for May 13 during its annual organizational day at a beachside resort near Pusan, said Batchelor.
“We went out to local businesses,” he said, to solicit various gifts that could be raffled “strictly for a charity.”
Some PSF Defense Department civilians donated cash to buy some of the raffle gifts. too, he said.
Among prizes are a ferry trip to Fukuoka, Japan; round-trip air tickets to South Korea’s popular Cheju Island; local restaurant gift certificates; and a one-night stay at a hotel at Pusan’s famous Haeundae Beach.
Tickets, for sale to PSF staff only, already have raised more than $900 of the $1,000 target amount, he said Monday.
“All money collected from that raffle will go for his surgery,” Batchelor said of Bong-sok.
Call Gray at DSN 763-7771 for more information.
