All facets of the New Year
The “Children of Russia” Fund holds a competition of hand-made items in many cities and towns of our country: from the Caucasus to Bashkiria. This year the young handicraft-lovers should have fantasized about the “Workshop of miracles”. And the fund received true small miracles – statuettes, decorations and toys – pretty, funny, artful and sincere. The best masters were awarded with presents – musical chests with a sweet surprise.
Every year the fund holds celebrations and helps hundreds of children to attend them. In December performances were shown for the fosterlings of Yelan-Koleno, Talovoye, Krasnoye settlements boarding-schools, Borisoglebsk social shelter (Voronezh region), and the disabled children of Novokhopersk were visited by the true Ded Moroz.
Aleksey Bakhmutsky, chairman of the Society of the Disabled Novokhopersk department, says:
“These kids practically don’t leave their homes; their parents are focused only on surviving and providing their children with chances for better life. This campaign is not just a New Year present. This is a manifestation of such care and attention which they rarely receive”.
The New Year is a busy holiday. The Fund’s employers have to manage everywhere. They are also waited by those who celebrate this fairy day at the hospital.
A volunteer service of the Centre of children’s oncology and hematology has been operating for a year under the aegis of the Charity fund “Children of Russia”. The team of volunteers holds celebrations and organizers educational classes, they do everything to make the boys and girls, who have to fight for their life every day, to forget about their illnesses at least for a short time and to feel like ordinary kids. At the end of December a New Year party was held for the patients of the oncocentre. When Ded Moroz and Snegurochka came to children with presents it was like a true fairy tale came to life. They are often told: “Do not cry! You are already a grown-up”… and today they have finally got a chance just to be children.
To become a wizard
In the New Year all children are waiting for a wonder and want to find the most dearest under the New Year tree: a doll or a construction kit for example. The kind spirit of the holiday does good through adults – mothers, fathers, grannies and grandpas. This year the “Children of Russia” Fund has one more time proposed for everyone who wants it to become a wizard for boys and girls from families with low-income, families with many kids, for disabled children.
The traditional campaign “Yolka Zhelaniy” (A tree of New Year wishes) (ссылка на спецпроект) was hold in cooperation with the Sverdlovsk region Ministry of social policy, with the aid of the “Tikhvin” wellness-club. This year benefactors have “made a miracle” for 33 kids from Yekaterinburg, Polevskoy, Artyomovsky, Krasnoturyinsk, Bulansh and other towns. A New-Year tree decorated by the round cards was set in the “Tikhvin” wellness club. Each of the cards contained the dearest wish of one child: 9-year old Lisa was waiting for a “Shaggy” toy, 7-year old Anya asked for “Baby Bon”, and 12-year old Maxim – a toy-car with a distant control.
Yuliya Nutenko, the head of the Fund “Children of Russia”, said: “There was no limit to our joy when we knew that nearly half of the wishes came true on the first day, two-thirds of them – on the second day, practically all of them found their wizards and came true to the middle of December. Even to us, adults, it seemed to be a real wonder”.
If we say that the children were happy to get the presents about which they had asked Ded Moroz, we will say nothing. Most of them have to overcome “adult” problems in their young age: they have to fight for their health “like grown-ups”, to silently undergo injections and droppers, to refuse even from the most needed things because their families can’t afford this. They don’t say looking at colourful shop-windows: “Mum, I want this” or “Mum, give me this”. They know that this purchase is above the budget. Ded Moroz is really the only one whom many of them can ask for a present… They were given belief in kindness and in true New Year wizardry!
“Peculiar” wishes
Most of children expect to get a toy or sweets as a New Year’s gift. But the children who fight against serious diseases have peculiar wishes which cannot be fulfilled by going shopping… Two little participants of “Tree of New Year wishes” applied for the following not simple requests.
11-year-old Pavel is a lifelong disabled person. One eye of the boy is blind, and the child is facing total loss of sight. In his letter he had asked Ded Moroz for a trip to Moscow and said to his relatives in a not-childish way: “While I can see a bit I want to see our capital. I don’t need anything more”.
7-year-old Polina, an epileptic, needs a special wheelchair with fixation devices for a head, arms and legs. This equipment will enable the girl to go out for a walk. Such a wheelchair costs 120-150 thousand rubles, and it’s the only thing she has asked the fairy New Year wizard for.
During the action the money has been collected both for the trip to Moscow and for the purchase of a wheelchair. Pavel’s and Polina’s wishes will be fulfilled in the beginning of 2015 and we’ll tell you about how these miracles have come true.
– Every year we see how various a New Year wonder may be, – Yulia Nutenko, the director of the charitable fund “Children of Russia”, said. In these joyful and bright festive days we, with the help of the non-indifferent people, try to make presents of man-made wonders to those who need them so much.