“Gift Hope” – Hope To People

The Christmas philanthropy event “Gift Hope” is interesting because it encourages families to share during the holidays. Parents and children make gifts and put them in a special box called “Gift Hope”, which is delivered to child in need.

For the second year, our familyparticipated in this event. Currently, we have 11 boys, who study in higher educational institutions of the Rivne region. Through different philanthropic events, we teach our boys to share warmth, give people joy, give orphanage children hope to be found and have family, and to become friend with children. This year, we got several families from the church “Spring of Life”, our Bible study groups, team Nuga Best, the public schools, and the Zdolbuniv trade school involved. The participants filled 116 boxes total.

These gifts were spread on the 28^th of December among 63 elementary school children and on the 29^th of January among 53 middle school and high school students of the Mizoch orphanage for children with speech defects. There are 190 children from age 4 until 16 years old in the orphanage. Half of them are from large and problem families. The orphanage administration allows us to organize Christmas and Easter events for the children. We use our family funds to deliver boxes to the orphanage.

This is not just philanthropy, it is ministry and shared loved with children: our boys go to the stores, buy gifts, and fill the boxes with them. This event not only strengthens relationships between the orphans and a family, which can cause potential adoption, but also strengthens orphan graduates relationships with orphanage children.

When we asked if this event is worth making again, people were answering: “Yes. Our people need to learn to share.” When someone comes up with a great idea, then youth starts acting, which gives the impulse to everybody to do good right now.

The orphanage administration is thankful to everybody, who participated in preparing the boxes and brought children joy. Some people decided to invite some children over on weekends and holidays, brings them to the outreach performances of Christian studio “Dzhereltse,” Zdolbuniv.

Oleksandr Bondarchuk