KCED · Korean Culture & Economic Development · Fort Lee, New Jersey
Independent, public-interest media — twenty-six years in the making, now entrusted to the community that made it.
You can hold a story alone. You can only carry it far together. A studio built over six years and 320+ productions, now becoming public-interest media North Jersey owns and holds in trust.
A Governor, a U.S. Senator, and the officials who run this region have all been on the record here — alongside community press conferences, official meetings, and original news. We don't have to prove we can do this. We already have.
From the founder
It began as one magazine. It becomes everyone's.
The most consequential media is rarely the loudest. It is the record that stays — the camera still running after the crowd leaves, the neighbor finally heard, the story someone thought to keep.
In 1999 I founded Mom&I, a magazine this community still remembers by name. It was never loud. It simply endured.
Over twenty-six years that publication became a studio, and six years of deliberate work made it a professional production house — three hundred productions, press conferences, public officials answering to residents on the record. A small room that came to hold a community's memory.
I am giving it away.
Not in spite of its value, but because of it. Authorship is temporary; a record is only worth keeping if it belongs to everyone inside it. So the studio, the archive, and the stage pass to the community — as public-interest media held in trust, governed independently, and built to outlast any single name.
The reason is simple. You can hold a story alone; you can only carry it far together — to reach more people, and travel farther than any one person could.
Mom&I · 300th Issue · Legacy Edition
For twenty-six years, this community’s living story grew here — its voices, its milestones, its quiet, everyday courage. Never mine to own; only mine to tend, until it could belong to everyone it is made of.
So it grows on — not as mine, but as ours.
Sylvia Kim · Founder
A Founding Contribution
Not equipment. A working newsroom.
Now it becomes a platform to build on — together with the partners and institutions across the region who will grow alongside this community.
This isn't a room full of gear. It's a fully operating media institution — a broadcast studio, a control room, a podcast suite, and a six-year archive — that has already produced press conferences, leader interviews, official meetings, and original news. It's handed to the community on day one, running.
What the community receives
A full professional broadcast studio and control room
A dedicated podcast and interview suite
Six years of productions — an archive of the community's life
The relationships and standing that make leaders show up
The studio, the cameras, the control room — handed over, running
How it works
Here is exactly how it runs.
From its studio base in Fort Lee, KCED is building a media hub that reaches across Bergen and Hudson Counties — connecting North Jersey's Korean community and the wider public it serves. It is funded three ways, and turns that funding into public-interest media made together with the community. We hold the studio, the channel, and the archive. Our partners bring the mission and the people. Here's what each part means.
Grants
Foundations and public funders invest in local news and community media. KCED holds the studio and the six-year track record that make it grant-ready.
Civic partnerships
Public agencies fund KCED to reach communities they can't reach alone — with trusted, in-language media the audience already believes.
Founding & program sponsors
Individuals and businesses underwrite a program in the community's name. Acknowledged with thanks — never given a say over what we cover.
↓
The studio
KCED Foundation
We take that funding and produce public-interest media — holding the studio, the newsroom, the channel, and the archive, and convening the room where the community meets.
StudioNewsroomDistributionArchiveConvening
made with many partners ⇄
Senior organizationsSeniors & aging
Youth & family organizationsYouth & safety
Women's organizationsWellness & access
Licensed professionalsHealth · law · benefits
We build the structure to work with many organizations, not one — so the media stays diverse, and never depends on any single group. Partners bring the mission and the people; they receive a studio, a channel, and co-credit.
↓
The community gets
Multilingual public-interest media · town halls with officials · press conferences carried by national and local newsrooms · an archive of community elders · media training
↺ Reach and impact flow back to funders as the record that renews the work.
What we do
Some things only we can do. The rest, we do together.
A few programs are ours because they only work from the studio — the newsroom, the officials, the festival. The rest we produce with the organizations who own the mission, giving their work a studio and a channel it never had.
We produce directlyOnly the studio can
Reporting
The Community Newsroom
Public-interest reporting and interviews in the languages neighbors speak — 320+ productions and counting.
Press & standing
Community Press Conferences
When a matter is big enough, we convene the press — bringing local and national newsrooms to the community's own stage.
Town hall
Live Q&A with Officials
Broadcasts where the community asks and public officials answer — accountability, in the open, on camera.
Culture
Chuseok Festival & Heritage
The first official Korean festival with the City of Jersey City — an annual celebration of the traditions that carry the community forward.
Training
Storyteller Training
Free training that puts the tools of media directly in residents' hands — so the community can tell its own stories.
Youth · delivered
Youth Broadcasting Camp
A proven summer program where young people learn on real broadcast equipment — already run, and ready to scale.
We produce with partnersMission + our megaphone
Elders & memory
Senior Living Archive
Recording the life stories of community elders on camera, so a generation's history is kept.
With senior organizations
Youth & voice
Youth & Media Literacy
Young people learn to tell their own stories — becoming the next generation of trusted local voices.
With youth & family organizations
Women's wellness
Women's Wellness Media
Multilingual conversations and resources on women's health and the new-parent journey — including our new series, After 48 Hours.
With women's organizations & clinicians
Panels & seminars
Expert Sessions & Panel Talks
Licensed professionals across fields — health, benefits, immigration, law — in seminars and cross-profession panels, pointed to real services.
With licensed professionals
KCED Foundation provides media, education, and connection — inviting licensed professionals and directing people to established services. It does not provide clinical counseling, and never puts vulnerable individuals on air.
Economic Development
Programs & Services
KCED is Korean Culture and Economic Development. Alongside our media and cultural work, we help immigrant and multilingual entrepreneurs build businesses that strengthen New Jersey’s communities — the second half of our name, made real.
Korea DeskMultilingual Business Navigation
A single, reliable point of contact that helps immigrant and multilingual small businesses establish themselves in Jersey City — with language support, step-by-step guidance through city processes, and connection to the right resources. Not faster — fairer. Every review stays fully intact; we make the path clear, not shorter.
01
Multilingual Intake & Navigation
One place to start. Step-by-step guidance in Korean and other languages, with interpretation and translation so no one gets lost in the process.
02
Readiness & Qualification
We review plans, entity structure, and requirements before filing, cutting the wasted time of rejections and re-submissions.
03
Permitting & Process Guidance
Clear, transparent explanation of city processes and where an application stands. Every review standard stays fully intact.
04
Resource & Partner Connection
Connection to the City, JCEDC, Choose New Jersey, NJEDA, financing, and professionals — pointing people to services that already exist.
05
Education & Capacity Building
Free, multilingual workshops and materials on doing business in Jersey City, so first-time owners start on a fair footing.
06
Community & Corridor Activation
Through Chuseok and the K-Bio Summit, connecting businesses, consumers, and community — and turning culture into local economic life.
Programs with a track recordCulture into commerce
Life Sciences
K-Bio / Femtech Summit
An annual gateway connecting Korean life-science companies with New Jersey’s investors and institutions. Our 2025 summit at Liberty Science Center facilitated approximately $12 million in investment and market-entry activity. The 2026 edition (October 27–29) focuses on femtech — one of the fastest-growing areas in bio.
Culture
Chuseok K-Festival
The first official Korean festival with the City of Jersey City — introducing Korean culture and businesses to the city’s commercial life, and connecting one of America’s most diverse communities to local economic activity. Returning October 17, 2026.
How it worksOne desk, two tracks
Businesses already here
Task Force
We bring together existing Korean and multilingual small businesses to surface obstacles and connect them to city resources.
Businesses arriving
Korea Pavilion
We provide intake, guidance, and connection for companies entering Jersey City from Korea — a gateway that helps new arrivals land.
Built for this moment.
Jersey City has more than 300,000 residents but not yet the street-level commerce a city this size should have — and much of that daily spending crosses the river to New York. The city has said it will grow non-tax revenue and lean on state partnerships to close its gap. Korea Desk does exactly that: it brings in businesses that arrive with their own capital, hire locally, and pay taxes — at no cost to the city. Where other cities run this on the public payroll, we run it for free.
Not an experiment. A proven model.
New York’s NYC BEST has helped thousands of small businesses and saved them tens of millions. Los Angeles cut permitting times by roughly 25% with a dedicated concierge. New Jersey’s own Operation FAST is moving the same way. We bring that proven approach to Jersey City — specialized for Korean and multilingual communities, at no cost to the city. And we’ve already done the work here: the first official Chuseok Festival, and a K-Bio Summit that facilitated approximately $12 million.
KCED Foundation provides free, multilingual, public-interest guidance — the same rigor, less delay, at no cost to the city. We point people to services that already exist; we do not replace any city review.
Aug 1Launching
Now launching
After 48 Hours.
A new public-interest series on the first days of parenthood — honest, multilingual conversations for new mothers and families, produced in the community studio. The newest proof of what a hyperlocal media studio can make.
Convening power · the community gathered in the studio
Already on the air
320+ productions — and a channel that never went dark.
Six years of interviews, documentary, education, and culture, produced in this studio.
Interviews
Leaders on the record
Officials, founders, artists, and educators — from neighbors to the Governor and a U.S. Senator.
Documentary
Stories of the community
Long-form storytelling that keeps the life of the neighborhood on the record.
Education & culture
Knowledge people can use
Educational series and cultural programming for a diverse community.
On the record · leaders and neighbors, recorded in the Fort Lee studio
On the record
From neighbors to the highest offices in the state.
For 26 years, this newsroom has put the people shaping North Jersey on camera — proof that when this community speaks, leaders show up.
These are interviews, not endorsements. KCED Foundation is nonpartisan and independent; no official or agency named here is affiliated with or sponsors the Foundation.
Elected leadership
Governor Mikie Sherrill · U.S. Senator Andy Kim · New Jersey Assembly & Jersey City officials
Community & institutions
Association presidents, nonprofit founders, and civic leaders across Bergen and Hudson
Founders & industry
Startup founders and small-business owners building across the region
Artists & educators
Musicians, new-media artists, and educators carrying culture across generations
The record
320+ community productions, and counting
Who we answer to
We answer to the community. No one else.
Not to funders. Not to advertisers. Not to any single interest.
The people who have protected this community — who showed up, who built its value over decades — they are who this answers to. They are what makes us.
Independence isn't a slogan here; it's how the Foundation is governed. An independent board, a firewall between who funds the work and who decides what gets covered, and a simple promise: we disclose our major supporters, we decline money from political parties, candidates, and campaigns, and no funder ever shapes our coverage. Support makes the work possible — it never buys a say in it.
KCED Foundation is incorporated as a New Jersey nonprofit corporation, and its application for federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt recognition is currently under review by the IRS. Once granted, recognition applies retroactively to our date of incorporation, and contributions become tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.
Founder & CEO
Sylvia Kim
Founder · President & Executive Director
26 years in New Jersey media · earlier career at News Corp / Fox
Publisher, community advocate, and connector — Sylvia has spent 26 years using content and storytelling to connect people and industries: Korea and the US, the community and its government, one generation and the next. This studio is where that work comes home.
"For 26 years I recorded my neighbors' voices. I built this studio to hold them. Now I'm giving it away — because a story is only worth keeping if it belongs to everyone. This is no longer mine. It's ours."
Our leadership
An independent board holds this in trust.
An independent board will govern this work — not to own it, but to guard it. We are inviting a founding group of New Jersey civic, media, and community leaders to hold KCED in trust for the public it serves. Founding members will be announced as they join.
Partner & support
There's a lane for funders, for partners, and for neighbors.
The studio only works because people build on it. Tell us which lane is yours.
Fund the work
Foundations and agencies investing in local news and community media. We are grant-ready and built for collaboration.
