The War in Ukraine rages on.  Our Kyiv Office as well as many of our coordinators continue their work, especially those in Western Ukraine and the Kyiv region.  The recent indiscriminate bombing of all of Ukraine has made it difficult for our Kyiv office and our work but has not curtailed our efforts.  As a matter of fact, we are expanding our services thanks to grants that we received, increases in donations through our website, and in response to current demands and needs.

 

     The Marketing Research Education Foundation (“MREF”), through the efforts of Baal Dan Charities, selected Orphans’ Aid Society (“OAS”) to directly receive a $50,000 Grant to support the educational needs of children in Ukraine, primarily under the age of 18.  Our Kyiv office canvassed our orphan population to determine annual costs.  They prepared a Program to distribute the Grant money to our sponsored orphans and to orphans awaiting sponsorship.  We have begun distributing the Grant money.  Thanks to MREF’s generosity, 318 orphans in Ukraine, primarily in Grammar School and High School, will have their educational costs for clothing, travel and school supplies paid for in 2023.

 

     OAS incurs a transfer fee every time it transfers money directly to an orphan in Ukraine, or to a coordinator, or to our Kyiv office.  Our transfers are numbering in the hundreds.  Self Reliance Federal Credit Union in New York (“Self Reliance”) kindly provided a Grant to cover these bank transfer fees. This is a significant savings to OAS’s administrative costs.  In addition, Self Reliance matched this Grant with an additional monetary gift.  With this additional gift, OAS has created a College Fund. The purpose of the College Fund is to help orphans in higher education pay their tuition costs.  Recently a sponsored orphan requested help with her tuition, which prompted us to review and recognize this need.  Thanks to the generosity of Self Reliance, orphans attending higher learning can now have their tuition costs offset by OAS.

 

     In the past eight months, OAS received a flood of generous donations through our website.  The donations came from individuals, corporations and funds.  OAS thanked each and every donor and committed to them that their donations, in full, would be used to help the orphans and the needy in Ukraine.  We have created two funds to best utilize the donations received through the website: 

 

     The War Fund provides a stipend to all incoming orphans who await being assigned a sponsor.  This ensures that all orphans receive immediate aid during this crisis.  Also, all orphans, whether sponsored or not, received an additional 50% stipend for the first period of 2022.

 

     The Humanitarian Fund provides money to orphans, their caretakers and all individuals in dire need of medical care or for the repair and restoration of their homes damaged by the war and Russia’s indiscriminate bombing. Our Kyiv office has received requests for both, which prompted us to respond with the creation of this Fund.

 

     We have also begun receiving sponsorship applications for children whose fathers have been killed in this war.  It is heart wrenching to see widowed young mothers in their mid-twenties left with two infants and no father to ever care for them again.  These widows are receiving immediate assistance through our War Fund as we assign them to sponsors, some of whom specifically requested War Orphans.  

 

     The Cardiff Medic’s Squash Club at Cardiff University in Wales, UK recently picked OAS as their chosen charity and are planning numerous fundraising events for the upcoming year.  We are grateful to the Club members for thinking of Ukraine during these difficult times and for choosing OAS.

 

 

We thank everyone for their continued support for the work OAS is doing in Ukraine.

 

October 26, 2022

 

Victor Czartorysky

Chairman

Orphans’ Aid Society