The family of Korean American murder victim Christina Yuna Lee has started an online fundraising campaign to ensure her name and legacy are remembered by future generations.
The 35-year-old, who was fatally stabbed by a stranger inside her own apartment in New York City’s Chinatown on Feb.13, was described on the campaign’s GoFundMe page as an active advocate for causes such as women’s rights.
Managed by Lee’s sister, Angela Lee, the campaign aims to “honor Christina’s legacy and values” by funding organizations and locations that she supported while she was alive.
Contributions to the campaign will allow Lee’s family to support Planned Parenthood, an organization that she actively supported as “a champion of every woman’s right to choose.” Meanwhile, supporting Womankind will help provide for the needs of female victims of domestic violence, sexual violence and human trafficking, among other crimes.
A portion of the campaign’s contributions will go to SafeWalks, a volunteer organization that helps New Yorkers who feel unsafe going home by pairing them with a companion. The contributions will help SafeWalks “expand to other neighborhoods in the city and provide faster response times.”
The campaign’s GoFundMe page also stated that Lee “believed in the power of green and open spaces as opportunities for self-realization and exploration.” She reportedly considered Elizabeth Street Garden near her home as “her personal oasis” which she visited regularly “to read, sketch, listen to music, and hear poetry.”
Lee’s family aspires to place a memorial bench and a tree in her name at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, where she would go “to meditate, gather with loved ones, and find peace in its wide green expanse.”
Kenneth Takanami, one of Lee’s co-workers who shared the GoFundMe campaign on his Instagram account, described her as an advocate against anti-Asian hate, as NextShark previously reported.
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The campaign’s initial funding goal of $100,000 was surpassed in less than 24 hours and has since been increased to $300,000 so that Lee’s family can “establish the Christina Yuna Lee Memorial Fund,” allowing them to fund the “organizations and others in the future.”
As of this writing, the campaign has raised over $160,000. Its GoFundMe description ends with a call to action, urging potential donors to help with keeping Lee’s legacy alive: “Please consider taking part in this collective effort to honor Christina’s memory and to help prevent this tragedy from happening to anyone else. Nothing will give her back to us. But with your help, we can make the 35 years she spent on Earth mean something for generations to come.”
Featured Image via Angela Yujin Lee (GoFundMe)
