Volunteers of the Month! Stella Yoo and Derek Kang

Volunteering and the spirit of giving transcends oceans.  Derek and Stella both have a history with volunteerism and refused to be hindered by a short hop across the world.

Hoyoung “Stella” Yoo came to San Francisco as an exchange student form Yonsei University and is adamant that it “is one of the finest Universities in Korea.”  She enjoys interacting and socializing with people so she was naturally drawn to the Orchestra and volunteering club at her Yonsei.  She has had over 10 build-trips with “Habitat for Humanities” in Korea.  Through those trips, she gained practical skills as well as how to cooperate with people.  From her experience she learned that, “only when we gathered and cooperated together, could we build housed much easier and faster,” she also felt that the work was very rewarding.

During the 2011 Fall Nonprofit Fair put on by SFSU’s Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, Stella met Valerie.  Stella was looking for a place to volunteer with and after asking Valerie a few questions and receiving “kind and specific” answers.  Once she learned about RTSF and its mission to help the low-income adults with disabled, elderly and families.  She felt that being a part of RTSF would be “worthwhile because a house is one of the most necessary things for living our lives” and she “wanted to choose an agency which serves more practical help.”

Dongwoo “Derek” Kang was recruited by Stella, and he jumped right in.  Derek draws from his previous volunteer experiences as the Vice-President of a youth volunteer club, two years as an assistant at a rehabilitation Hospital, and helping seniors who lived alone for a year.  As a San Francisco State University Student, he took a course focused on community involvement and sharing the experience.

Derek feels that, “most enjoyable thing at RTSF is to work with kind and funny people in the office,” Stella adds “I appreciated that I could work with great people and could give some help to them.”  Stella also noted the RTSF staff and AmeriCorps have an unhealthy obsession, “they barely took a rest” adding that they “never leave their place until they finish their projects.”

Stella and Derek have done a great job!  Whether it was working with our database, helping refine our filing system, translating documents to Korean and passing out flayers in the OMI during our Fall Build Day, it has been a pleasure to have them as volunteers.