'Yellow Umbrella, Blue Umbrella, Broken Umbrella' – Bring Them All!

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Jung Jun-sung] Suwon City operated the '2024 First Half Mobile Umbrella Repair Center' from March to April, repairing 1,461 broken umbrellas for citizens.

The 'mobile umbrella repair center,' implemented as a '2024 first half local community job project,' is a service where local community job participants who received training from umbrella repair specialists fix broken umbrellas for citizens free of charge.

Beginning in March with Jang-an District Civic Hall (Jang-an District), the umbrella repair center operated across locations including the Agricultural and Seafood Wholesale Market (Gwonseon District) in April, Yeongdeungpo District Office (Yeongdeungpo District) in May, and Suwon City Family and Women's Center (Paldal District) in June. It operated Monday through Wednesday (closed on holidays) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and each person could have up to two umbrellas repaired.

Over the four-month period, 828 citizens visited the mobile umbrella repair center, and 1,461 broken umbrellas (an average of 32 per day) were repaired. This represents a 74% increase compared to the second half of 2023, when 839 umbrellas were repaired.

A Suwon City official stated, "This is a project to prevent resource waste by discarding umbrellas that can be reused with simple repairs," and noted that "the number of visitors increased significantly compared to last year." The official added, "We will continue to operate the mobile umbrella repair center so citizens can have their broken umbrellas fixed and reused."