Expats in Gwangju are gearing up to give gifts to children in care, in an annual Christmas donation drive.

The Adopt-a-Child for Christmas campaign has raised 9 million won ($8,000) so far for Christmas gifts, according to organizer Calen Cygan.

Fund-raisers have been held throughout the year, including a Christmas in July event and a date auction that raised 1.5 million won.

“We have had scavenger hunts and trivia nights and other fund-raisers, too. We’ve had many small events to raise that much money,” Cygan said.

Children at Gwangju Foreign School also raised money by fighting a “coin battle.” Kids earned positive points for putting silver coins into their team’s collection jars and could inflict negative points by putting coppers into their opposing team’s jars. 

A Big Bang fan club has also joined in, as the city has a connection to its youngest member.

“The youngest member of Big Bang is originally from Gwangju, and his fan club usually buys some Christmas presents, but this time they want to contribute to the presents for the orphanage here in his hometown,” Cygan said.

The Adopt-a-Child for Christmas campaign was started in 2010 by local expat Al Barnum to help Sungbin Orphanage. Since then, the program has gradually expanded. Last year, over 650 children in care received presents through the scheme.

Children are given winter jackets or other gifts worth 30,000 won.

Cygan said they had already raised enough money to supply every child in six orphanages, and were hopeful of being able to help more children this year.

As well as monetary donations, other people are buying gifts directly for the children. Those include families from outside Gwangju that want to get involved with their own children.

“We had some other expats in Seoul and Busan who have young children and wanted to sponsor a child around their own child’s age,” Cygan said. “So they are going to travel down to Gwangju for the Christmas party to hand over presents to the corresponding children.”

The Adopt-a-Child team will be holding Christmas parties for two of the orphanages on Dec. 19, while Santa will be visiting the other facilities to drop off gifts.

Any leftover money will be used to make donations of diapers and formula to local infants’ centers.

Cygan said Adopt-a-Child for Christmas is still taking donations, but the cutoff date is Saturday. For more information on their activities, visit www.adoptachildgwangju.org.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)