By Na Haejung

    SEOUL, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- When the nation is impatiently waiting for one of its biggest holidays, so are the children who busily filled a small auditorium in the Poongnap Community Welfare Center in the southeastern area of Seoul.

    In addition to the Christmas Holiday, they are also anticipating a yearend festival prepared just for them, with a clown, a witch, and an angel briskly walking around them and ready to begin the show.

    Inviting some 90 kids, who are mostly from low-income households or single-parent families, as well as the disabled, the Community Center plans the so-called Santa Claus Party where the children can entertain themselves.

    The event, supported by a Seoul City-run corporation, provides the children with diverse programs, such as a quiz show, recreation activities, magic performance and a fairy tale play.

    The festival peaked when the center was visited by two Santa Clauses, who brought with them several boxes of presents for the kids.

    As the two Santas, who were actually disguised charity workers, distributed a package of presents to each child, the auditorium was filled with jubilant voices of the children eager to compare what they got with their friends' gifts.

    "I love today's party. It is fun. I especially like the play Sleeping Beauty," 10-year-old Lee Ka-yeon, who participated in the party for the first time, told Xinhua reporter after the event.

    "It is almost like the second Children's Day of the year, for I fully spend it as a kid-oriented holiday," said Ka-yeon's mother, expressing her full satisfaction over the event.

    The Poongnap Center, having hosted similar festivals for years, said they can prepare a bountiful feast for the children thanks to the support of the Seoul Agricultural and Marine Products Corporation, which launched its first welfare move aimed at Christmas.

    "Without their help, we could not have arranged such an affluent party as we are always facing an obstacle in budget," said Lee Eun-mi, a social worker at the center.

    The company also said it enjoyed the event, adding that it hoped to continue supporting the festival.

    "Although it is our first Christmas to share our time with the needy children, I believe we can be here next year as well," Park Sun-kyung, manager of the company, said.

    The Poongnap Community Center is not the only organization to benefit from local corporations' increased interest on charity and donation over the Christmas Season.

    In fact, more South Korean corporations are increasing the portion of their spending on social welfare, with some even shifting their expenses prearranged for yearend events to be spent for charity purposes, South Korea's Joongang Ilbo reported.

    The Salvation Army Korea said it has collected donations totaling 2.36 billion won (2 million U.S. dollars) during the first 20 days of December, up 14 percent from the same period of last year, the state-run KBS reported, adding that South Koreans have increased interests and efforts on helping out the needy neighbors.

    While its global peers are reportedly seeing decreases in charity expenses amid a protracted global economic crisis, South Korea does not seem to fit such a case, with the business circle taking an active role in reaching for the needy class of the society, according to various media reports.

    One of the reasons may be found in a government-led campaign which calls for constructing the so-called 'charity culture.'

    In mid-December, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, as he convened a meeting with finance ministry and other related government bodies, stressed the importance of a culture that values charity and donation, vowing to implement a system that could encourage such moves.

    The Lee administration, in a related move, is planning for an expanded tax exemption on donation for individuals, revising up the rate from 15 percent to 20 percent.

    With the South Korean government seemingly turning more accommodative towards charity, the society is embracing the concept more naturally than ever, resulting in more money and out of individuals' and firms' pockets to flow into the needy over the holidays.

    While the local media flooding with warm reports on how various groups are helping out the darker side of the society, however, it is still dubious whether the move will last even after the Christmas and yearend season.

    South Korea, though currently experiencing one of the fastest growth rates in the world, is warned of many uncertainty factors that may drag the economy down into a double-dip, and, thus, economy may still stand in the way of systemizing charity culture.

    Although South Korea's Christmas can be warmed by the charity move, it may still need time to figure out whether the country could keep up the charity wave further deep into the new year.

Special Report:  Global Financial Crisis