Molly Holt's father, who died in 1964, is buried on the hillside. Her mother, now 95, still lives in Oregon. The compound, operated with a combination of government funding and private donations from within South Korea and abroad, is a local landmark. Ask directions on the street, and nearly everyone seems to know the way. Almost since it opened, Korean parents unable to care for their children have been finding their way to Ilsan.
People leave a lot of children here.
Some of those children are healthy or have limited health problems and, following Korean law, they're sent on to other agencies that will try to match them with adoptive parents. But many suffer from overwhelming disabilities. Those problems persuade many parents to give up their children, particularly because Korea has long provided little in the way of aid or special services for the mentally and physically handicapped, Holt says. The government has become more responsive to the children's needs in the past few years, she adds . That has left Ilsan with plenty of children to care for, and increasingly with many who have lived here for years and grown to adulthood.