An American family will be given an award after they won Korean hearts by picking up garbage from Busan's Gwangalli Beach in the wake of typhoon Chaba earlier this month.

Busan's Suyeong District on Monday said it decided to honor Deanna Rupert, 38, and her 13-year-old daughter Fiona and five-year-old daughter Stella.

"It gave me some food for thought after seeing images of foreigners who voluntarily cleaned up after the havoc created by natural disaster, which is not an easy thing to do," district chief Park Hyun-wook said.

Rupert and her daughters saw that Gwangalli Beach was strewn with rubbish when typhoon Chiba receded on Oct. 5 and came back with cleaning equipment to help clean it up for four hours.

A Korean woman took their picture, which quickly went viral on the Internet. Rupert is a teacher at Busan International Foreign School.