KCED Foundation — A community media studio for North Jersey

By the numbers

This isn't a plan. It's a record already made.

26

years telling this community's story, since 1999

300+

productions made in this studio

6

years on the air, without a break

$250K

invested in the studio — now the community's

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.

The story

It started with a magazine. It ends as everyone's.

For 26 years, Mom&I told the story of a community — its families, its milestones, its culture — as one of the first Korean-American family magazines on the East Coast.

Then, in the quiet and upheaval of the pandemic, a studio was built — carefully, privately, over six years. Hundreds of productions followed. The people shaping this region sat in its chairs. Stories, history, and memory were made here, and kept.

Now that studio — every camera, every light, the space itself, the history and the dream inside it — is given to the community. Not rented. Not sold. Given.

It's a reinterpretation of what a media studio is for. Just as K-culture is no longer only Korea's, but the whole world's, this studio no longer belongs to one person. It belongs to everyone this neighborhood is made of.

A stage for every voice, and a room where neighbors gather.

Ours, from the very start.

Miryong Sylvia Kim · Founder

The gift

Not equipment. A working newsroom.

Most nonprofits spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to build what this community already has.

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

How it works

Here is exactly how it runs.

KCED 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

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 — 300+ 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.

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.

Brought to you by Hatch Haus

Convening power

When the community needs to be heard, the press comes here.

For matters that matter, this studio has hosted community press conferences that brought the newsrooms out — local New Jersey media alongside national outlets. Few community organizations can summon that room. This one can — and that reach now belongs to the community.

Newsrooms that have covered community press conferences in this studio

The New York Times CBS FOX ABC Local NJ press

Coverage, not endorsements. We convene the press only for genuine, community-wide public-interest matters — which is why they keep showing up.

Already on the air

300+ 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.

Watch on YouTube → M Creative Studio · six years, 300+ productions

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

300+ 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 a New Jersey nonprofit corporation. Its application for federal 501(c)(3) tax-exempt recognition is pending; contributions are not yet tax-deductible.

From the founder

Miryong 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."

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.

Partner with us

Community organizations, schools, and experts who bring the mission — and get a studio, a channel, and co-credit in return.

Support the launch

Founding supporters and neighbors who help open the doors and become part of the first chapter.

Start a conversation Sylvia@mpluscreative.com

A studio built over six years — holding twenty-six years of our community's stories.