Adam Torres and Peter Park discuss Dreams Come True Foundation (DCTF).
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
The Dreams Come True Foundation advocates for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAIP) Community. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Peter Park, Founder, CEO at Dreams Come True Foundation, explore Peter’s journey as an entrepreneur and the Dreams Come True Foundation.
About Peter Park
Peter Park is one of the Top Real Estate Investment Consultants in Los Angeles, California with 38 years of experience in International Investments, Commercial Real Estate, and Property Management, with extensive experience in the resolution of troubled assets. Since 1994, Peter specialized on maximizing the performance of underperforming assets. Peter’s clients include National Banks, Institutional Investors to HNW private investors.
Peter has done many speaking engagements at International and National Real Estate conferences and had been interviewed by a Korean National T.V. as the U.S. Real Estate Expert. Peter has been awarded numerous certificates and recognition over his career and for participating in the community services.
Peter serves Dreams Come True Foundation, a nationwide non-profit as the Founder and C.E.O.. The organization’s core mission is to make our society a better place to live in by improving housing issues, empowering our members to serve at a higher capacity, mentoring the next generation of leaders, and providing a platform for our community leaders to have a place to share their thoughts and resources.
Peter served Asian Real Estate Association of America, as a National Treasurer, AREAA-Greater Los Angeles “President” for 2012 and 2013, and National Conference Chair for the year 2013.
Peter comes from a multi-cultural background and is Trilingual (English, Korean, and Spanish), traits which have proven to be a vital asset in a culturally diverse Los Angeles.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today’s guest is Peter Park and he is the founder and CEO over at Dreams Come True Foundation, also known as DCTF.
Peter, welcome to the show. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Peter, I’m happy to finally have you on. I know I went to one of the events that you had over at the Santa Anita, excuse me. Race park over in Santa what is that? It’s in our, is that in Arcadia proper, Peter, I’m just trying to make sure it’s Arcadia.
Yeah, that’s what I thought Arcadia proper. And it was such a beautiful event, just very well done. Mm-hmm. And I got to know more about the organization and after that, I’m just thrilled to have you on the show so you can highlight it and bring that content to our audience. So I guess in order to get us started here, Peter, let’s just kind of start from the beginning.
Dreams come true foundation. Like I see you’re a founder. How’d the idea for this organization come about? I mean the Dreams Country Foundation, you know, it is a national nonprofit organization committed to, in providing affordable housing and resilient housing for all underserved communities.
And we advocate for a API community. Mm-hmm. And, you know, these are seniors for some home buyers, renters even the homeless people as well. Mm-hmm. So the DCTF came about because, I was minding my own business, right? Running my own business and yeah having someone, you know, comfortable life, whatnot.
And then I realized there’s more to life than this. And and I also saw so much I. Hate out there, especially I think it is the pandemic made it even worse, but there’s so much hate for AI community out there, right? You know, there’s the elderly citizen getting beat up and this woman and yeah, so much hate, hunger, and you know, children’s dream being crushed before it can even blossom, right?
Mm-hmm. So seeing all of that, made me realize and some of our friends that we need to do something about it. Right. So, and then because most of us, we are in the real estate industry that’s what we know, right? Yeah. So providing affordable housing we think it is the most fundamental need the, piece of the puzzle to make our society a better place.
This, you know, when you have a, safe place away from the streets, right? Mm-hmm. Children not having to worry about getting marked or having just a place to sleep. Simple as that, right? Mm-hmm. Because a lot of children don’t have that. So being able to provide that is just, a start of nurturing that dream, right?
Mm-hmm. Becoming somebody, becoming a productive citizen for the society, right? Yeah. So it’s about having heart and passion to make a difference for our society , that, you know, the community that you, I, and all of us living together. Hmm. So who’s gonna take care of it? We need to take care of it.
Right? Yeah. Peter, did your background or your upbringing have any influence on you serving and starting DCTF? Yeah. Nobody taught me this, right? I think it is your upbringing has a lot to do, who you become. My father, no. First of all, I was born in South Korea, raised in Ecuador, is a South American country.
Mm-hmm. And I was educated in us. I did have a very strong culture influence from my parents. Mm-hmm. My parents, especially my father, used to say, Hey, you know. Son, you know, if you don’t work hard to become a responsible and productive citizen, you might as well go out there and just die. Wow. And I think, I think he meant it right?
So at the time I was thinking like, what you talking about? I’m like, 14, 15, and what productive, what? But I think those teachings stuck with me. Yeah. And I’m still trying to, you know, work hard to be also responsible, productive citizen, our society. Mm-hmm. And I teach the same principle to my children.
Yeah. And because of that. I’m trying to make a difference. So yeah, definitely my upbringing, especially the, you know, my parents mm-hmm. Instilling those, you know, principle in me sending love to the, sending love to those old school strong Korean values. Right. Yeah. They into you. That’s wonderful. Yeah. So, let, going further , into the organization what kind of activities or projects do you have or, or are you working on?
Before I start sharing about that, I think I should mention that the Adam, I mean, did you know that until a few years ago, a IP committee was classified under the other category? US census. Oh, I didn’t know that. Wow. Yeah, so US Census, you know, has many different statistics in there. One of them is housing, right?
Mm-hmm. So it has a Caucasian blacks brown or Hispanics. And then there you would think that there’s A-A-A-P-I community and there was not. It was they had it, all of us, 24 million of us under the D other category. Right. Mm-hmm. So and many other government entities and the major corporations do not have a IPI community in their planning mandate policies.
So those are the things that, that the DCTF advocate about, right.
In order to achieve the goal, the being able to provide affordable housing, we have home buyer seminars. Mm-hmm. We are working towards becoming a hot approved agency. Mm-hmm. There’s only like 0.2% of all the hot approved agency is A API community driven. Right? Mm-hmm. So, once again, I wanna make sure that people understand we advocate for the A IPI community because there’s such a lack of mm-hmm.
But we work to provide affordable housing for all communities. Everybody needs a housing, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, you know, we work with the hub. We provide financial literacy program, and I believe we need to start early. So like junior high, high school you know, financial literacy programs and the affordable housing development.
Mm-hmm. So we wanna build housing for the senior citizens, and mind you 25%. Of the Asian American seniors, they retired in poverty, right? Mm-hmm. So I didn’t know that. Housing, yeah, so housing for the senior citizens. And then the once again, you know, there are a lot of single parents out there with children and they have no place to go.
So we wanna be able to provide a housing very cheap. Low income housing, whatever you wanna call it, we wanna be able to provide those housing. Mm-hmm. And then the ultimately we wanna be a platform where all the people with a heart for the community, they can come together and share resources, ideas, and build a better future.
Yeah. So if you wanna get involved, do something about the community, join us because we have lot of programs that you can participate in. Yeah. How, and , let’s go further on that, line of thought or that train of thought. So how can people get involved with D-C-C-D-C-T-F specifically?
Like either whether it’s contributions, whether it’s event like, how do people get in touch? Well no, we are nonprofit, right? Five one C3 nonprofits just like Red Cross and, you know, Goodwill we need money. Mm-hmm. Any good deed we need to do needs money. So we would appreciate donations or you can just become a member.
Our members, we call them dream builders, right? Mm. So become a dream builder volunteer with our, you know, projects, events, or you can partner with us as a sponsor. We host, you know, national housing fields to bring more awareness of the need in the housing. And so the, we have a platform that you can, we’ll find something for you to do, right?
So d ct f ctf.org just. Check it out. And the there are a lot of you know, good information there and our contact information reach out to us and we can make a difference for the community. Hmm, that’s amazing. And what is the, what kind of things do I know when giving to organizations, nonprofits, and otherwise, people are always like, interested in like, where does the money go or how is it spent?
Things like that. Like , when people make donations, what kind of things does that go to support? We’ll have a fundraising for specific projects, right? Mm-hmm. Where there’s a, a development project, then you can donate directly for that cost. We do, you know, I’ll be very frank, you know, we do need money to pay our employees, of course, to run the operation.
Form Bill, you know, things like that. Mm-hmm. Of course, some of the money will go towards the general administrations, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But we wanna make sure that those are kept at the very, very minimum. Mm-hmm. And all the money that is donated and whatnot, we go towards building a better future.
Something we really believe in , the tangible. Legacy. Mm-hmm. So, building a house. So one of the projects we are hoping to do is we wanna get a donations or donated properties or buy some properties really cheap mm-hmm. And be able to rebuild it, sell it. And with a profit we wanna save it.
And then down the road, like, let’s say like 10 houses down the road, we wanna be able to build a new home for say like a disabled veteran. Mm. Completely changing life of that family. So those are the tangible legacy that we wanna focus on. And the people who are with us you know, donors and whatnot they will know exactly what is the we are doing and where their money is going to.
Mm-hmm. Wonderful. Well, Peter, it’s been great having you on the show today and learning more about what you’re doing over at Dreams Come True Foundation, DCTF. That being said, I know you said it once, but maybe somebody’s driving in the car, maybe they’re at work and they didn’t get a chance to write it down.
What’s the website again so people can follow up and can connect? Yeah, it’s a Dreams Come True foundation. So it’s a d CTF org. Perfect. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links , to the website in the show notes, so you can just click on it and head right on over.
And speaking to the audience. If this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Peter, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you. It’s a pleasure.