A crowdfunding appeal on behalf of more than 300 computer factory workers in Scotland who were sacked without pay on Christmas Eve has raised more £17,700.

The appeal was launched after the US-based firm Kaiam dismissed nearly its entire workforce at its plant in Livingston on Monday.

The appeal, set up by a community worker, Mhairi Duff, had an initial target of £10,000 but that was quickly surpassed. By mid-morning on Boxing Day, £17,740 had been raised towards an increased target of £20,000.

Other local businesses and groups had already begun donating Christmas presents and financial gifts when news of the plant’s imminent closure began circulating several days before Christmas.

Staff were told not to report for work five days before Christmas and warned they would not be paid. On 24 December, they were told the plant was being mothballed while the administrators KPMG tried to find a buyer for the business.

A local bowling club lent £4,000 before the crowdfunding appeal went live, and toys, shopping vouchers and other gifts were handed in to a local community centre.

Duff told BBC Scotland: “It started after a group of women from all walks of life and backgrounds, who had never met each other, decided to get together and help those who lost their jobs get through the next few weeks, not just Christmas. We have been overwhelmed with the support that has been shown from the community.”

KPMG has told Kaiam staff they will need to apply to the UK government’s insolvency service for their unpaid December wages, prompting calls from the Scottish government for those payments to be accelerated.

Jamie Hepburn, the Scottish minister for business, fair work and skills, said he was disappointed the government agency Scottish Enterprise had been unable to find a way to keep Kaiam operational.

He said he was writing to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy calling for back payments to be issued within four weeks rather than the usual six-week target.

Kaiam’s collapse prompted demands from Scottish Labour for an investigation into the scale of Scottish government financial support for the company. Kaiam was given £850,000 by Scottish Enterprise in 2014 to move some of its production from China to Livingston.

The deal with Kaiam was announced in April 2014 by the then first minister, Alex Salmond, while he was in the US for Scotland week, an annual ministerial business tour. He cited Kaiam’s decision as proof that that year’s Scotland week had been the most successful ever, and evidence that the country could thrive with independence.

Neil Findlay, a Labour MSP for the Lothians, said he had written to the Scottish parliament’s economy, energy and fair work committee asking it to investigate what conditions and outcomes were attached to Kaiam’s grant and to another grant, to the chicken processing firm 2 Sisters, which closed its Cambuslang plant after getting financing to keep it running until 2020.