You're reading: These Ukrainian charity initiatives are helping kids on eve of winter holidays

The winter holiday season is the time for giving and receiving presents, and enjoying some family time. For most Ukrainians, it starts with Saint Nicholas Day, celebrated on Dec. 19 by Eastern Orthodox Christians.

St. Nicholas, Ukraine’s traditional version of Santa Claus, brings presents to children in Ukraine on the evening of Dec. 19 and puts them under their pillows. In parts of Western Ukraine, he puts presents into children’s boots, which they carefully clean and sometimes place on windowsills to make them easier for St. Nicholas to reach.

But for over 70,000 children in Ukraine who don’t have families, this miracle often never comes. And the over 1,000 children diagnosed with cancer in Ukraine each year need not just presents, but special care and life-giving treatment.

There are several Ukrainian charities helping these children in need. Here are some ways to support to children in need, and help to make them feel part of a family – at least for a day.

Your Support

The charity fund Your Support lets people fulfill the dreams of one of 2,000 children from 16 orphanages across Ukraine. Supporters can select a present for a child from a list online, buy it, and take it to any office of Nova Poshta, a shipping company that is a partner of the project. Nova Poshta will send the present to the volunteers for free. The volunteers will then take it to the child in need.

Your Support encourages participants to share information about the children and the presents they are getting them on social media with the hashtag #ДаруємоДива (#GivingMiracles). This way, more people will know about the project and will be able to participate.

Select a present before Dec. 16 online at: tvoya-opora.org/1000gifts.
Then follow the instructions sent to your email.
You can also support the project by donating money that will be used to buy presents at: tvoya-opora.org/donate.

The activists of St. Nicholas’ Deers project pose for a photo by the sign marking the town limits of Stanytsia Luhanska, a frontline settlement in the east of Ukraine in December of 2017. (Facebook/OlenySviatogoMikolaya)

St. Nicholas’ Deer

Activists from Kharkiv are also looking for kind hearts to help buy presents for over 1,000 children living in frontline areas of Ukraine, where there is still a danger and occasional shelling. Supporters can select a child’s wish they would like to fulfill, buy a present and pay for it to be sent via Nova Poshta to Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. From there, “St. Nicholas’ Deer” will deliver the present to the children’s homes.

The activists collect letters sent by the children to St. Nicholas, which can be viewed online. In one of them, six-year old Myron from the town of Luhanske in Donetsk Oblast writes: “Saint Nicholas, I am allergic to wool. I have a bald cat. I want a furry lion.”

Select a present and contact the organizers through: oleni.org.ua.
Supporters can also donate money to buy fuel for delivery vehicles and for other expenses.

Gifts for health

Tabletochki, a charity fund that pays for treatment of Ukrainian children with cancer, calls for people to donate during the winter holidays, because according to its data donations to charities drop off in January. With its annual project Gifts for Health, Tabletochki collects money to pay for medicine needed by children in Ukrainian cancer treatment centers.

Supporters can choose the child they would like to help from a list online, and then send money to Tabletochki’s bank account. It the comment field of the payment, supporters can write a message that will be delivered to the child on a postcard.

Supporters can choose a child to help by putting their name next to his or her name in this spreadsheet: bit.ly/perelik_likiv_2018.
Make a money transfer through: super.tabletochki.org/en/campaigns/darunki-na-zdorovja.

Christmas Miracle

Charitable foundation Zaporuka is calling for help to build a new patient and family accommodation unit for children with cancer from all over Ukraine. Located in Kyiv, the National Cancer Institute yearly provides treatment of cancer to hundreds of children. Some of these children and their parents come to the capital from other parts of Ukraine, but often have problems finding a place to stay close to the hospital.

Zaporuka is thus trying to raise money to complete the building of the “Dacha” patient and family accommodation building for children with cancer, which is located close to the National Cancer Institute.

Currently, the charitable foundation is renting a house to provide such accommodation, but only six families can live there at one time. However, another 15 families whose children are undergoing treatment have no place to stay nearby the hospital.

Zaporuka has already started the construction of the new accommodation unit, and received over Hr 9 million ($321,000) in donations, but it still needs to raise another Hr 10 million to complete construction.

The new “Dacha” accommodation unit promises to provide a place to stay for 350 families per year. It will have a playroom for children, and be located close to the hospital, so that children with cancer can get immediate medical assistance should their condition worsen when they are not in the hospital.

Zaporuka has created a hashtag for the money-raising campaign – #РіздвянеДиво2018 (#ChristmasMiracles2018), and invites everybody to help those who will have to spend the New Year and Christmas holidays undergoing hospital treatment to get a nice, new place to stay.

Donate money using a hashtag #РіздвянеДиво2018 at: ubb.org.ua/uk/project/4073/.