Avalon Health Care Center

Avalon Health Care is hosting its Second Annual Life Journeys Award Gala on Sept. 21. Fifteen residents of Utah’s Avalon’s senior care centers will be celebrated at this event having been chosen to receive Avalon Life Journeys Award by their respective center’s staff in recognition of their extraordinary life experiences. Hae (hi -chee) Chi is one of those awardees being celebrated.

Hae Chi has an amazing story that begins in North Korea, when she and her newly married husband left their home country (even though it may have meant their death for leaving North Korea and the new regime). They came to America with the main goal of continuing to help others, many of whom were from different cultures and languages (Hae Chi does not speak English). As Hae Chi explains so eloquently through the translation of her son, Moon,”even though we don’t share the language, we know each other.”

With the close of the 2012 Olympic Games, it’s interesting to note Hae Chi and her love of sports. In fact, Hae Chi has a winning background in the sport of Track (including her husband’s international recognition and support of Soccer). Because of her life journey of over 80 years of caring for others, and her love of sports, she found a way to combine her love of people and sports. To help soothe their former country’s strife, Hae Chi and her husband created an international soccer match where North and South Korea still to this day discard their conflicts to play this annual game. Hae Chi and her family’s story was so inspiring that Avalon Health Care is awarding her this year’s Life Journeys award.