Centralight

17 centralight fall '14 But he kept thinking about the hungry, orphaned kids in Korea. Kirwan used to take a dozen oranges from the mess hall in the morning and toss them to hungry children from his Army Jeep. One day he was on campus sipping coff ee when he had an idea. "It just hit me," he recalls. "I asked a friend who was with me, another GI, 'What do you think about all 5,000 of us at CMU adopting an orphanage in Korea?' "He said, 'It's a good idea.' I thought, 'Now I've got to do something.'" A member of Student Senate, Kirwan got the Senate on board. Other organizations soon joined in, including the InterFaith Council, the Veterans Club and the International Relations Club. The groups joined together to form the new Korean Orphanage Committee, chaired by Kirwan. After some research, they decided to adopt the Mun San Orphanage in the village of Munsan-Ni about 40 miles north of Seoul. They called the project Central's Chosen Children. The money started rolling in The Mun San Orphanage sat on a narrow, crooked street, surrounded by poverty and fi lth, according to a report from Col. Oran Burns, a former ROTC commander at Central who visited the orphanage for the students and sent back a detailed report. There were 46 children living there, ages 2 to 16. The buildings where the children lived were like "chicken coops," Burns reported, made of newspaper and mud. Four or fi ve children slept on the fl oor of each 8-foot by 8-foot room. They needed everything. Members of the Korean Orphanage Committee put up posters on campus, got a story published in CM Life and distributed canisters around campus to collect money for the children. "Then things sprouted like mushrooms," Kirwan recalls. "Nobody I asked to do anything ever said 'No.' They all said, 'What can I do to help?'" It's been 60 years, but the memory of the little Korean girl in a threadbare dress, crying in the night, still haunts Neil Kirwan, '61. He was a 20-year-old soldier stationed in Daegu, South Korea, in 1954 when he drove past her standing by the road on a January night. The girl was crying. "She was cold," he recalls, "with nowhere to go." He and the soldier with him took her to the GI ration car. There was a stove there and food. "During the two hours we were there, she was warm," he recalls, "and she ate." After Kirwan found an abandoned boxcar for her to sleep in, he never saw the girl again. But there were many more like her, cold and alone. "The thought of her, and all the orphans, still haunts me," says Kirwan, now 81 and living in St. Augustine, Florida. "Life without a chance." Soon, thanks to him, their chances would get better. After his discharge from the Army, Kirwan went home to Petoskey to look for a job and take night classes off ered by CMU. After 18 months, he headed to Mount Pleasant to continue his education on campus. The Flying Chips, a group of student pilots, sponsored airplane rides for donations. The Vets Club sponsored a greased-pig chasing contest on the football practice fi eld with a $10 prize for the winner. Students paid 50 cents for a chance to catch the pig or 10 cents to watch. Among the most popular fundraisers: "Smash the Nash," where students paid for a chance to smash an old car with a sledgehammer. "There was a dance where admission was a penny for each inch around your waist," Kirwan recalls. "And students went door to door in Mount Pleasant, collecting donations. "Suddenly, everybody seemed to know about it." Kirwan's cousin, a reporter at the Detroit News, wrote a story about the project. Other news coverage followed, throughout Michigan and the country, all lauding Central for the unique idea. Central students raised more than $20,000 for the Korean orphans. Their eff orts paid for food and clothing, blankets and toys, fi rewood, three acres of land, a three-story building for eating and sleeping, a cement-block storage shed for food and supplies, a greenhouse to raise fl owers to sell, pigs and rabbits for food and resale, seeds for planting, an ox, and a plow. Students were always eager for reports on "their children," as they called them. Smash the Nash

• Cover