At age 14, some high schoolers spend their time scouring social media for viral videos or creating one themselves.
Not Dragon Kim.
As a freshman at the well-regarded charter school Orange County School of the Arts, Dragon was thinking about how to help others. He realized many kids in underserved areas near his Santa Ana high school didn’t have the same opportunities as him.
The gifted musician, who could play a half-dozen instruments, set out to teach kids music—for free.
But, before he could get the project off the ground, Dragon died in a tragic accident in 2015.
Heartbroken, Dragon’s parents channeled their grief into ensuring their son’s legacy would endure through the creation of the Dragon Kim Foundation.
“This is Dragon’s legacy, so let’s push it forward,” Dragon’s father Daniel Kim told the Business Journal a few days after accepting a Business Journal Family-Owned Business Award.
The Irvine-based non-profit won in the small business category for providing music lessons to local elementary school students regardless of socio-economic background and investing in high school entrepreneurial projects.
Instilling the Importance of Community Service
Dragon’s parents, Daniel Kim and Grace Tsai, taught their children at a young age the importance of community service. Before Dragon’s 5th birthday, he was told he had to complete a community service project before he could get a present.
So Dragon, born in the year of the Golden Dragon in 2000, set out to fill holes in the local dog park.
Nearly a decade later, that need to serve stuck with Dragon.
While studying at OCSA’s Instrumental Music Conservatory in Santa Ana, Dragon “realized that a lot of the kids that live in and around OCSA, were quite economically challenged,” his father said.
Dragon wanted to create a free music program. His father told him: “Fantastic, go do it.”
Daniel, who spent 25 years as an investment banker, guided his son as he wrote his business plan.
His pitch to OSCA was simple: “Give us a classroom. We want to create a music program. My friends and I will raise the money. We will help teach,” his father recalled.
A few weeks before the program would start, Dragon and a friend were killed when a massive tree branch fell on the tent that they were sleeping in during an August 2015 camping trip.
His dream was “all set to go” but it “didn’t materialize,” Daniel said.
Dragon’s parents created the Dragon Kim Foundation to “keep his spirit alive,” Daniel said when accepting the award during the June 12 ceremony.
It also provided the family an outlet for their grief — for their love.
“They say grief is love with nowhere to go. Our love for Dragon needed somewhere to land,” his parents wrote on the foundation’s website.
From Music Lessons to Business Training
In its first year, the Dragon Kim Foundation included 22 OCSA youth leaders—including many of Dragon’s friends—who taught music lessons to 15 kids. The students learned how to play the clarinet, violin, trumpet, cello and viola.
Today, the music program serves more than 250 people in Orange and Los Angeles counties every year, adding a full line of instruments including saxophone, percussion, guitar, ukulele and recorder for the younger kids.
“It grew very quickly,” Daniel said.
At the end of the first training session, the students gave a musical performance.
Daniel noticed that not only were the students and their parents proud of their accomplishments, but the volunteer high school teachers were also beaming with pride.
“They were so proud of what they had done in teaching these kids,” he said. “That’s when I realized that the music program is actually a leadership program too.”
In 2017, the Dragon Kim Foundation created the Fellowship program, a nonprofit incubator funding social entrepreneurial projects from high school students.
“These kids are thirsty. They have ideas,” Daniel said.
The foundation is now shepherding dozens of students each year through their projects — by providing mentorship and funding in the same way the Kims mentored their son.
“Let’s do for other kids what we did for Dragon,” Daniel said. “That’s how the fellowship program was born.”
Fellows receive rigorous leadership and business training called an “MBA in a box,” and are paired with a professional mentor.
“A great idea is a great idea, but it isn’t much until you execute it,” says Daniel, who previously ran a private equity firm.
Each project, often involving one or more teens, receives a grant of up to $5,000. The program ends with a Shark Tank-style challenge, where teams compete for additional funds to continue their project.
To date, the fellowship program has funded 330 projects involving 640 students — with nearly half of them going on to study at Ivy League schools.
Medical Pop-up Clinics
Over the years, the projects have ranged from creating medical pop-up clinics to producing plays to teaching students in Los Angeles how to use and build computers.
Daniel tells the young entrepreneurs that their ideas can change “your little corner of the world.”
This summer, the foundation is funding 63 projects for a total investment of more than $500,000. Money for the program is raised through donations, fundraisers and key sponsors such as U.S. Bank and Sun Family Foundation.
Daniel knows Dragon would be proud of the program — something he came to fully understand a few years after his son’s passing.
In 2018, the year Dragon would have graduated from OCSA, one of his teachers sent his parents a postcard Dragon wrote as a freshman to his senior self.
His parents read the note, hearts racing, bodies trembling.
In it, Dragon wrote about the free music program: “I hope it’s something big by now.”
