ATLANTA — For 35 years, Clark’s Christmas Kids has been a Georgia holiday tradition, helping provide gifts for children in foster care across the state.

Organizers say thousands of gifts are still needed to ensure every Georgia foster child has a happy Christmas. Volunteers and supporters are still collecting donations Sunday at the Walmart on Cobb Parkway in Marietta until 3 p.m.

The impact of the program is felt deeply by foster families like Lillian Coulson, a Jamaican-born, full-time foster mother who has cared for numerous children over more than 20 years. Coulson says fostering has shaped her life as much as it has changed the lives of the children she’s helped.

“Once you’re a mother, and you go into foster care and you see those children as yours,” Coulson said. “They might not be your biological child, but you see them as yours.”

Coulson’s most recent foster child, Troy, is now her son. His adoption was finalized in October. When she first met him in 2021, Troy was seven years old and weighed just 29 pounds. Now 11, he weighs 75 pounds and requires around-the-clock care. Coulson says she believes she has made a positive difference in his life.

“I do foster care because the child is a human just like my child,” she said. “For that reason, the children that I took care of are being treated just like my own children, even better than my own children.”

Coulson says rising medical bills and the cost of everyday needs made affording Christmas gifts especially difficult in recent years, until she received a call connected to Clark’s Christmas Kids.

“When they called me and told me that there were gifts for the child, I went to the DFACS office and I was surprised to see the amount of gifts that were there,” she said.

Though she didn’t know who donated them, Coulson says every gift helped Troy and was deeply appreciated. “Everything that he got was appreciated. Everything was appreciated,” she said.

Organizers say gifts purchased by listeners and distributed through Clark’s Christmas Kids help bring holiday joy to foster families across Georgia. Donations are still being accepted to help meet this year’s needs.

WSB Radio’s Jonathan O’Brien contributed to this story.