Adopt-a-Child 2021:“Something That Has to Be Done”

Gwangju News (GN): Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. First of all, could you please give us an overview of the Adopt-a-Child program?
Sarah Hale: Adopt-a-Child Gwangju was founded in 2010 by Al Barnum. Its main goal is to get Christmas gifts for children at the orphanages in Gwangju. We began with simple gifts, then shifted to winter clothing, and now we have a 50,000-won budget for each child we serve to pick whatever gift they want in that price range. We have covered at most nine orphanages in the city but have been focusing on Sungbin Girl’s Home and Ilmaek Boy’s Home for the past few years.

GN: What is your role in the program?
Sarah Hale: I am the president of the organization, but we have not had a group of people working on the program for some time due to the pandemic, so the title seems silly. Technically, it is just myself and Yuri Lee, who helps me with finding impossible items in the Korean online shopping sphere and is my go-between with the orphanages we cover each year. There are also always friends and volunteers that help wrap gifts, drop them off, and write Christmas card messages.

GN: Why do you feel it is especially important to support children who live in orphanages? Why is this a special cause for you?
Sarah Hale: I do not find it a special cause necessarily, just a necessity. While Christmas is not as much of a family holiday in Korea, it is still visible around the country and celebrated widely. I do not want one of these kids to not have a present they can share and show their friends at school like the other children. It is also something they get to have full control over and spend however they like. Gifts have included a professional coffee-making set for a boy who wanted to become a barista, a mattress for an older boy about to move out, name-brand fashion items they would not normally be able to afford, a giant kitchen set for a little girl, and an air fryer for an older girl also about to move out. It is not that it must be Christmas, but just that every culture has a familial celebration where gifts are exchanged, and that should not mean that kids in situations out of their control should not be able to celebrate, too.

GN: Organizing and carrying out this program every year is a lot of work. What makes you want to keep doing it year after year?
Sarah Hale: I have no idea. It is very rewarding when we drop off the gifts, and I love seeing the pictures. It is just something that I think has to be done. I do not have much of a poetic response to why I continue to do it. I just cannot imagine not doing it.

GN: Were you ever involved in any activities like this before coming to Korea?
Sarah Hale: Yes, I was. I volunteered when I lived in Constanta, Romania, in 2006–2007 at an orphanage for children who were HIV positive and also in an orphanage in Bulgaria, when I lived there in 2009–2010, that did a similar Christmas gift exchange. I started volunteering here at Sungbin Girl’s Home in 2012 and from there got involved in the Adopt-a-Child program in its infancy.

GN: We understand that some of your traditional fundraising methods are on hold because of COVID-19. How have you been working around this?
Sarah Hale: Luckily, I have always tried to keep a surplus of money in our account, since I usually need to start shopping at the end of October or beginning of November. We also keep extra in there to pay for volunteering activities at Sungbin Girl’s Home when we could go there pre-pandemic. I have put on two fundraisers since the pandemic began with Justin Gunn Taylor, which the American military was involved in, and those have held us over. The American military is also helping out by writing the majority of our Christmas card messages this December. We are all set for now, but I need to be able to hold events for 2022 to keep it going. Hopefully, we can revive the Date Auction this summer!

GN: As many people in the Gwangju community are no doubt aware, you are the 2017 recipient of the Michael Simning Community Builder Award. Can you speak to the importance of being involved in one’s community, and in particular, the Gwangju community?
Sarah Hale: Well, I would not be doing this Christmas drive or have the ability to run the Sungbin volunteering program if it were not for Michael Simning. We need people like Michael who lead our community and bring us together such as Craig and Ron at Loft, Caleb at Nirvana, Kelly Kim with GOFG, Taesang Park with Dreamers, or Melline working on I cannot even count how many things. Gwangju has always been famous in a way for our tight-knit and service-minded foreign community. I have felt a sense of loss in how we were pre-pandemic, but we still have our pillars, and I do not think this will break us. Gwangju has always had a magnetic pull for expats who bring our community together, and I do not think that will stop.

GN: In all your years being involved with this program, are there any particularly special moments that stand out to you?
Sarah Hale: Making people I know reluctantly dress as Santa is always entertaining. Really, seeing the kids excitedly open the gifts and show them off is always special. I have more comedy-of-errors situations that I always remember. For instance, there is the time when a girl wanted a straightening iron for her hair and was given a clothes iron, which we were able to replace within 30 minutes with both a straightening iron and curler! In the end, we were able to give the new clothes iron to a very excited imo (이모, auntie) who takes care of the girls.

Photographs courtesy of Adopt-a-Child Gwangju.
Interviewed by Melline Galani.

The Interviewee
Sarah Hale has lived in Gwangju since February 2012, almost a decade. She is originally from Maine, USA, and now works at Dongshin University in Naju. Sarah has an adult daughter named Jieun and the cutest dog in the world named Harold.
Program Website: https://www.adoptachildgwangju.com/

The Interviewer
Melline Galani is a Romanian enthusiast, born and raised in the capital city of Bucharest, and is currently living in Gwangju. She likes new challenges and learning interesting things, and she is incurably optimistic. Melline loves living life as it is. Instagram @melligalanis