BGF Retail, which operates a convenience store CU, will join hands with Jeju City to support young people at risk of isolation and crisis households in the welfare blind spot. It uses the national network of convenience stores to discover crisis households and supports young people's social isolation through convenience store vouchers.

BGF Retail announced that it signed a business agreement at Jeju City Hall on June 16 to promote the "On (ON) Neighborhood Convenience" project. About 20 key officials attended the signing ceremony, including Jeju Mayor Kim Wan-geun, BGF Retail CX Director Lee Eun-kwan, and Jeju City Mental Health Welfare Center Director Kang Ji-eon.

The ON neighborhood convenience project is a project to support living vouchers using convenience stores to discover crisis households such as risk of isolation and induce people to go out by utilizing the infrastructure of 434 CU convenience stores in Jeju City.

BGF Retail provides a system to report crisis households in the blind spot of welfare using the POS reporting system and promotes and guides franchisees. In addition, the Ministry of Health and Welfare will actively seek out crisis households by placing a "help request QR" in the store. Jeju City provides customized welfare services to those who receive them.

Convenience store living vouchers will be paid 50,000 won per month to 50 young people at risk of isolation, inducing them to go out and supporting social isolation through daily consumption activities at least once a week. Liquor and cigarettes cannot be purchased with this voucher. BGF Retail and Jeju City plan to supplement and expand the project after piloting it by December.

The increase in single-person households is behind BGF Retail's expansion of such projects to various local governments. As the number of single-person households increases, the number of middle-aged and young people who have little social contact is also increasing. CU is a life-friendly platform that operates 24 hours a day, and has the advantage of being able to discover crisis households on the spot. Based on this, collaboration is continuously expanding to create synergy with local governments' welfare blind spot excavation projects.

The agreement was also based on the performance of the "Hope ONNA" project promoted by BGF Retail in Nam-gu, Ulsan last year. Through the project, Nam-gu, Ulsan, has discovered 619 new people subject to intensive management. Based on this, 'Youth ONNA', a specialized project to prevent youth isolation, was also additionally implemented.

[Reporter Park Yoon Ye]