Samaritan Finds Herself Receiving Good Works

Gloria Kim was saved by the grace of her own good will.

She was out feeding the homeless when her house burned down two months ago, and thus escaped the flames and smoke that might have killed her.

“The gist of it is this lady was out helping others when her house was being destroyed by fire,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. Tim Kerbrat said.

On Thursday morning, Kerbrat and a dozen other firefighters who put out the fire in Kim’s South-Central Los Angeles home Dec. 26 were at hand to present the 57-year-old Korean American minister with a check for $1,000 from an anonymous donor.

Fire Capt. Stephen Ruda, who handed the check to Kim, said the donation was from a “well-known literary author” in Los Angeles who was moved by Kim’s story.

Kim, with her graying hair blending into her white dress and sweater, wiped tears from her eyes as she sang gospel songs to celebrate the occasion.

“Thank God, I am still here. I am not hurt,” the diminutive Kim said as the solemn firefighters towered above her.

For 11 years, Kim has been a fixture in the desperate corners of Los Angeles. She runs the Zion Gospel Mission church and has been featured in local Korean publications. She is known to many in the Korean American community as the white-clad grandmother who feeds the poor.

She was carrying on with her work when the fire struck just after Christmas. She left her house about 4 a.m. as she always does. A fire started in her kitchen and quickly spread through the first floor of the two-story building.

Given the early hour, the firefighters searched frantically, looking for whoever might be inside the house, Kerbrat said. But they didn’t find anybody.

“Where could she have been so early?” Kerbrat recalled thinking.

Kim did not see what had happened to her home until much later in the day when she returned from her regular rounds feeding the homeless soup and sandwiches.

“If I had seen the fire, I might have been shocked,” Kim said. But she was just grateful she was spared.

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Kim lost most of her possessions in the fire, but saved some precious photographs of the many people she has helped over the years.

She has moved to her small church on West 136th Street, where she lives with some of the homeless.

Many of them are drug addicts and hard to care for, she said. “Right now I am taking on the full load.”

Kim, who is raising money to build a homeless shelter, said the local Korean American community has donated about $20,000, but she needs $300,000 to get started.

Thursday’s donation brings her one step closer to her goal, she said.