Winnipeg couple left 'speechless' by support after convenience store destroyed in Kirkwood Block fire
CBC
Young Ae Lee and Min Soon Lee, owners of Eben Convenience Store — a shop destroyed in a fire which closed down Portage Avenue for two days — say they're past the initial shock of having lost everything and are looking forward to moving on.
The two spoke to CBC in Korean, having their son Kevin Lee do the translation while standing on the corner of Langside Street and Portage Avenue in Winnipeg, in front of the burned-down shop where they kept many of their possessions and spent most of their days.
"They're very sad to just see their business of 24 years in the state it is now," Kevin said.
"They're mostly just worried about all the paperwork … what they've got to deal with and just what to do going forward," he said.
Kevin says his parents are currently staying at an Airbnb that was offered by his girlfriend's boss until they can find permanent housing.
"This business is our livelihood, their livelihood, our family's livelihood for the past 20 years," he said. "They spent most of their life there."
He said his parents are considering opening another shop, but right now it's too soon to tell.
Kevin and his brother Paul Lee started a GoFundMe page for their parents' recovery and the page raised nearly $27,000 since Wednesday.
Speaking in Korean, Kevin's parents say they're not used to asking for help.
"Growing up, we've always just taken care of each other. That's all we had, so it was very awkward for my parents to see how much support [they had], not just in Winnipeg, this community, but the whole country," Kevin said.
"They're just speechless. It's just been an amazing amount of support from all over and they just want to thank everybody. I want to thank everybody," he said.
WATCH: Kevin Lee on his parents' reaction to public support:
Their story also garnered support from celebrities like Andrew Phung, who played the character Kimchee Han on the CBC sitcom Kim's Convenience.
Phung tweeted a link to the GoFundMe page and it was retweeted by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who played Kim Sang-il on the same show.
Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent and Sarnia can all expect between 20 and 40 millimetres of rainfall this weekend.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.