Blessings from Mom

by eddojkim

Today is International Waste Pickers’ Day, a day in which we remember the 15 million people who make a living from recycling.

So, why does this matter at all to me?

1) a majority of the waste pickers reside in urban slums, so it directly touches the work we do at The Supply.

2) it hits home. literally.

When I first started The Supply, my mom was not thrilled (understatement). Her arguments were endless, but for the sake of brevity, here are bullet points of her objections:

• it wasn’t in the traditional fields of medicine, law, or business (she’s Korean)
• “you have three Ivy League degrees. You crazy??”
• i wouldn’t make a lot of money doing it
• she was scared that I would catch a disease in the developing world
• “make a lot of money first, and then do something good for this world”
• “please just be normal”
• “do you really think people are gonna support your vision?”
• i wouldn’t make a lot of money doing it. (did I already say that?)

This resistance at first was crippling. I wanted her to be proud of me, to support me, and deep in my heart, to love me unconditionally. The weight of her disappointment at times was overwhelming.

However, I continued to follow my heart and continued to pursue what I believed in.  I didn’t speak to my mom much about the growing success of the organization, and definitely not the failures and challenges.  Little did I know she was watching from afar.

Fast forward to two years ago, when I visited my parents back home in Los Angeles. On my way to grab a drink from the garage, I noticed piles and piles of filled trash bags littering the floor.  My initial feeling of disgust turned into curiosity when I opened one up and saw cans and bottles.  (My mom collects everything from magnets to trinkets, so I just assumed it was another one of her collections).

The next morning, my mom woke me up bright and early and told me we were going to the recycling center.  [insert curse words in my head.] We loaded the car with the trash bags and headed to the nearby Ralph’s (grocery store).

For the next hour, we dropped cans and bottles into the magical machine.  The people waiting behind us were both pissed off and fascinated by how many cans we had.

In the end, a receipt popped out, and the grand total from our entire morning of recycling was a whopping……$17.42.  I remember blurting out “$17.42??? We did all this for $17.42??”

And then my mom looked straight at me and said “$17.42 might not mean a lot to you, but it means a lot to me, and it means a lot to the students in Kenya who can’t get a proper education. I’m proud of you son for everything you are doing for these students.”

I was floored.  Not only by the truth behind my mom’s words about the plight of students, but the support from her that I had yearned for for years.

You see, my mom has spent the majority of her years as a housewife taking care of my brother and me.  Even if she wanted to support our organization, she was limited.  She doesn’t have large networks, doesn’t make any money, and can’t speak eloquently about our issue or organization.  But, she knew she could do something.  That’s when she decided to start rounding up cans and bottles from friends, family, and neighbors.

Since that day, my mom has been a huge advocate of The Supply and an even bigger advocate of me.  Or more accurately, that’s the day I solved this life-gripping mystery. I had never felt so liberated, so activated, so inspired.

To this day, Mama Kim continues to collect cans and excitedly clips out any newspaper/magazine articles about me/our org. She is our #1 fan. No one will ever recognize her for what she does,

But her trash-bag-fingerprints have left an indelible mark on me…

and on this world.