Photograph of a bicyclist in front of a colorful building
Photo: Hansae Lee ’24
Service & Advocacy

Prints for a Purpose
Raising funds for Ukraine

By Sophie Driscoll ’23 / June–August 2022
June 17th, 2022

When Hansae Lee ’24 read about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he asked his Instagram followers to recommend charities that would support Ukrainians in need. After Lee researched the recommendations, he decided to donate the proceeds from his online print shop to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

“We can never do enough,” Lee says. “I feel like we can always do more.”

It’s not Lee’s first fundraiser. Born in Korea but raised in Singapore, the photographer and applied math–economics and philosophy double concentrator started to sell his prints for a cause in June of 2020, the summer after he graduated from high school. The impetus: U.S. protests against racial injustice. “We were halfway across the world, but we felt like we needed to do something, so we spent a few days setting up a website,” Lee explains. He donated the money he raised to Black Lives Matter. “After the success of that, I realized: Why not just keep this platform? I adjust the charity I donate to depending on what’s in the news.”

Lee tries to capture the moments he sees in his everyday life and on his travels—as in the photo above, taken in Hoi An, Vietnam, at dawn on a rainy day in 2018. “Locations don’t change,” he says. “Moments, they’re happening and then they’re going away. It’s the little interactions that inspire me.” More at hansaelee.com.

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Related Issue
June–August 2022