“Elderly Baked Meringue Cookies, A Sweet Second Life”... Gyeonggi District ‘Gabaerang’ Promotion Exhibition

Incheon Gyeonggi District (District Head Yoon Hwan) has received great response from residents by operating a promotion booth for products made by the elderly community business group ‘Gabaerang’, where seniors directly make and sell desserts.

On the 12th, Gyeonggi District announced that it held an event to display and sell handmade desserts made with care by the seniors of ‘Gabaerang’, affiliated with the Gyeonggi District Elderly Human Resource Development Center, in the lobby on the first floor of the district office.

‘Gabaerang’ is a community-type job model operated to assist the elderly in social participation and economic independence. Starting with 5 participants in 2024, the project has steadily expanded its scale to 8 last year and 10 this year, establishing itself as a self-sufficient job within the community.

At the promotion booth, desserts of quality comparable to specialty shops, such as meringue cookies, financiers, and madeleines baked by the seniors themselves, were presented to citizens. In particular, the holiday gift sets planned ahead of the Lunar New Year attracted high interest from residents, with all prepared stock being sold out.

Visiting the site to encourage participating seniors, Yoon Hwan, the head of Gyeonggi District, expressed, “I am pleased that the skills of the seniors are improving day by day, and the products produced are receiving a good response in the market,” and added, “In the future, I will continue to discover various community jobs that can connect the rich experiences and talents of the elderly to social value, creating a sustainable elderly welfare model.”

Gyeonggi District plans to improve the perception of elderly job production products through this promotion booth operation and provide more stable income sources and social participation opportunities for the elderly by expanding sales channels in the future.