It is my understanding that this is how it works: OWS volunteers will buy the loan (not OWS itself, I use OWS in the collective sense). They will then collectively forgive the loan. Since each loan is held and forgiven by a group of people, no one individual is likely to come close to the yearly gift cap. Individuals can participate in the OWS loan purchases until they run into the wall (i.e., their ability to participate in the purchase or to make further gifts). Note that this is why I assume the OWS loan forgiveness is treated as a gift--because in the above scenario, that is clearly the intent.

Alternatively, OWS would purchase the loan itself and then forgive the loan. OWS is a non-profit entity, so there would not appear to be any tax issues arising from this (or at least, if there are, the IRS has already indicated that such issues will ignored).