Children’s Day is a national holiday in Korea on May 5, and kids and adults alike have the day off from school and work. Families spend time together and parents treat their children to special meals and presents to mark the day.
For children in orphanages, however, Children’s Day can be a sad reminder of the “typical” lives they don’t get to lead. At KKOOM, however, we try to help give these children “normal” experiences by celebrating holidays with them and providing personalized gifts that do not fit in the standard government-supported orphanage budget.
This year, we enlisted the help of a retired house mom who worked at an orphanage for more than 30 years to buy individual presents for each child at one orphanage on Children’s Day. The children submitted their wish lists, and like Santa Claus, the retired house mom meticulously went store to store and purchased gifts for each child. You can read more about Children’s Day and how we made that day special for kids, thanks to KKOOM supporters, in a previous post here.
If you’d like to help us continue to make lives a little more normal for kids in Korean orphanages, we invite you to make a year end contribution here on our website. Thank you for your support!