Help A Beloved Family-owned Corner Store Recover

Our names are Almila Kakinc and Joe Olbrych, fellow residents of Capitol Hill. We are reaching out to our Seattle community following a damaging break-in attempt of our beloved neighbourhood convenience store.

In the early morning hours of November 7th, Summit Foods experienced its second break-in attempt in two years when a truck drove into its facade. The perpetrators fled the scene thanks to a good samaritan but left thousands of dollars in structural damage behind.

Summit Foods Mart is a small, Korean immigrant-owned convenience store; it is run by Mr. Jong Chul Kim with help from his family and has been in business for 20 years. In the humdrum of our technological society so atomized into overnight deliveries, Mr. Jong and his family’s store is one of the few remaining spaces that merge convenience with warmth.

We are lucky to call Summit Foods Mart our neighbour and want to continue having it so. We are determined to help Mr. Jong and his family not only rebuild but equip them with better protection for the future, and we cannot do it alone. We need your help to restore Summit Foods Mart so it can continue being the cornerstone of our Summit neighbourhood.

Every donation, no matter how small, will help our neighbours repair the damages and retain the community spirit that this space represents. If you do not have the means to donate, sharing this GoFundMe would mean a lot to Mr. Jong and his family.

Thank you for your support and kindness,

Almila and Joe

Cover Photo ℅ Whitney Lyman | @somethingfromnothingsuddenly