Who was Hyun Jung Grant? Atlanta shooting victim's sons raise over $2.5M, thank donors for 'second chance'
On March 16, 2021, Robert Aaron Long gunned down eight people at three massage parlors in Atlanta. Out of the eight victims, six were Asian women. Hyun Jung Grant, 51, was one of them. Grant was a single mom to 23-year-old Randy Park and his 21-year-old brother, Eric Park, working long hours at Gold Spa, a job that required her to be away from home for days or weeks at a time.
Randy remembered his mother loved “dancing and partying". When she was with her family, she always made time for meals, music and dancing. They live in Duluth, a city known as Koreatown in Georgia with its plethora of Korean-owned businesses and restaurants.
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Randy set up a GoFundMe page in memory of his mother who he said “dedicated her whole life to providing for my brother and I.” He further described her saying, "She was a single mother who dedicated her whole life to providing for my brother and I. It is only my brother and I in the United States. The rest of my family is in South Korea and are unable to come."
"She was one of my best friends and the strongest influence on who we are today. Losing her has put a new lens on my eyes on the amount of hate that exists in our world."
He further said: "Frankly, I have no time to grieve for long. I will need to figure out the living situation for my brother and I for the next few months, possibly year. As of now I have been advised to move out of my current home within the end of March to save money and find a new place to live."
Randy added, "My biggest priority right now is to put my mother to rest and plan out the funeral but due to some legal complications, I am unable to obtain my mother's body. I don't think I'll be able to figure out this whole situation along with legal matters if given 2 weeks to move out. Any donation will be used as funds for basic living necessities for my brother and I such as food, bills, and other expenses."
Describing Grant, her son told NBC: “She spent her whole life just existing for my brother and I. She never had time to travel. She would only be home a certain amount of days every few weeks.” He added that his mother usually slept through the night at her Atlanta spa job instead of driving the 30 miles up to Duluth every evening and that she bragged about her love for disco music and the club scene never got old.
“She was a big kid,” Randy said. “She essentially behaved like a teenager.” She somehow discovered an electronic music song called 'The Business' by Tiesto, which turned out to be very old to her son. “I had already heard the song,” Randy said. Both of them used to dance around, laugh and smile. Asked what he would say to his mom today, Randy said, “You did a good job. You’ve done enough and finally get some sleep and rest.”
Breaking the records, the fundraiser has raised more than 2.5 Million. After receiving such humongous support, Randy updated the page saying: "I don't know how any word I write here will ever convey how grateful and blessed I am to receive this much support. Sharing and listening was more than enough thank you so much. And to those of you that have donated any amount of money."
"To put it bluntly, I can't believe you guys exist. People I will probably never meet, hear, nor express my thanks to. This is simply a change in my life. I don't even think I have a proper grasp on how much this is. I've never had a good understanding how much money was worth but every cent of it will be used only in pure necessity. I will live the rest of my days grateful for what has essentially given my family a second chance."
He continued, "I don't even know if any of this makes sense or is grammatically correct. I had very close friends proofread and edit the description of the fundraiser but this is purely my words uncut and unedited. I can't name everyone for sake of space but you know who you are in discord. I won't be able to speak to you guys about how much everything has meant to me so I hope this reaches you guys."
Randy added, "Thank you everyone and please share whatever care and kindness you have shown here to anyone you know that feels scared or unsure about the world we live in. I can't help but feel selfish for all the attention this has garnered. Thank you everyone so much. This doesn't represent even a fragment of how I feel. My mother can rest easy knowing I have the support of the world with me."