Kyu Hwan Yeo, Eddy International’s current Administrative Manager, recently celebrated the company’s donations to Disabled American Veterans, St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital, Maryland State Police, and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Kyu Hwan Yeo played a critical leadership role in organizing these donations, explaining that his “extensive administrative experience definitely equipped me with the skills to organize this type of philanthropic work... I networked with the organizations to figure out which ones our company felt were doing critical public service work that deserved support, and coordinated a fundraising a campaign to help augment our company’s donations.”

Kyu Hwan Yeo has long been a passionate supporter of encouraging philanthropic work and giving in businesses, and in his personal life spends time volunteering for organizations. When asked about his most meaningful volunteer experience, he describes his volunteer work for Piece of House in Washington, DC from 2002-2003 inspiring much of his interest in philanthropic giving. He says that the company chose the organizations for this round of giving through a company-wide meeting where they voted from a list of 15 prospective organizations that Kyu Hwan Yeo had researched.

Employees felt strongly about supporting these particular organizations because “these were mostly organizations that honored ordinary people who risk their lives for us every day... policemen, firefighters, and war veterans definitely deserve our respect and support.” Kyu Hwan Yeo explained that St. Jude’s Childrens Hospital was also chosen because many of the employees were parents themselves and wanted to send a message that “our company sees the health and well-being of children as critical for building a strong society.”

In the future, Kyu Hwan Yeo hopes to make this a yearly giving campaign. At the company celebration, family members and friends were invited to learn about the organizations in order to try to raise awareness in the surrounding community about ways to support philanthropic giving and civic work. “I think it’s really important to show that businesses care about the community, and about supporting social and human services,” said Kyu Hwan Yeo. “I want to be a part of making that happen, and I hope that this recent donation is just the beginning of that.”