Gala

We celebrated Trailblazer Honorees: Randall Park, Hooni Kim, and Aiyoung Choi and also featured rappers Awkwafina and John & Rick Lee. Due to a scheduling conflict, Randall Park was not able to receive his award in person. The story he shared via video will not be published in order to respect the actor’s wishes for it to remain private.

For our 2015 Annual Gala we honored the Korean American Trailblazers Sandra Oh, Jonathan “Dumbfoundead” Park, Thomas Park Clement and our Diamond Supporter honoree, Marja Vongerichten. The event took place at the lovely Tribeca Rooftop and hosted by talented and lovely Vivian Lee. Dan Phai was our auctioneer who was kind enough to fly out from Los Angeles to help us out!

The spirits were high at our 2014 Annual Benefit.  Each year we feature interesting Korean Americans who share their stories live, without script.  It is as much about the art of storytelling as it is about the content of their stories. This year, Dr. Agnes Rhee Ahn and Lt. Dan Choi hit the ball out of the park. Their storytelling captivated us and their stories challenged and inspired us to act to be the agents of change in our world. As you can see from these photos, it was a fun and inspiring evening.

KoreanAmericanStory.org’s Third Annual Benefit “Live Storytelling”, took place on Tuesday, May 7th, 2013 at the Central Park Boathouse. Our special Storytellers Eugenia Kim and Milton Washington, wowed the audience with their captivating storytelling performances.  The evening was filled with inspirational and emotional stories and the power of authentic narrative was evident.

KoreanAmericanStory.org’s second Annual Benefit “A Celebration of Multi-Cultural Korean Americans”, took place on May 8th, 2012 at the French Culinary Institute.  Our special guests, Marja Vongerichten and Will Demps, shared their stories as bi-racial Black-Koreans.  Their stories were humorous at times, and sometimes they were poignant and heartbreaking, but they were definitely authentic and shared from the heart.

KoreanAmericanStory.org held its inaugural fundraiser which was a Benefit Recital with David Kim, the Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, on June 4, 2011.  We had a diverse group of attendees who witnessed an amazing performance by David Kim accompanied by Gail Niwa on the piano.  David played 5 musical pieces, and in between each piece, he paused to share his story in a genuine and authentic manner that captivated the audience and moved them to laughter and tears simultaneously. As one attendee commented it was a “once-in-a-lifetime experience”.