Спілка жінок Херсонщини

The project “I am Saint Nicholas!”, which has been implemented in Kherson Oblast by Kherson Women Union for three years in a row, for the first time visited the old friends of the Union – Kherson Special Boarding School for Hard of Hearing Children. The Chairman of Kherson Women Union Iryna Nikolaieva presented the gifts to the children together with volunteers and partners of the project.

For the pupils of Kherson Special Boarding School for Hard of Hearing Children, 16 December 2019 has become the day when the dreams come true.

“This is the first time in my memory that an institution organizes the holiday of St. Nicholas at such level. This is for the first time ever that the children receive from the guests not sweets, but what they wrote about in the letters to St. Nicholas,”- the head of the facility Viktor Merenkov said.

When the guests started presenting the gifts, the children hugged the volunteers with excitement. Some of them, on the way to the dreamed box, even forgot what he or she wrote about in the letter to St. Nicholas. Therefore, they were truly surprised that St. Nicholas had guessed what exactly they needed.

As the Chairman of Kherson Women Union noted, the donors tried to fulfill the dreams of the children as precisely as possible: “They unpack their gifts and see exactly what they wrote about in the letter to St. Nicholas, and even of that color, with that inscription or of that size they wanted. We tried to make the dream get as close as we could. Even if the donors did not find the gift in the desired version, as it was written, they chose something most closely resembling”,- I. Nikolaieva told.

At the same time, the public figure emphasized that the main thing in the project is not gifts:

“I am Saint Nicholas!” is not about candies and gifts, this is our communication with children from boarding schools. On the one hand, we want that the community feels itself involved in their growth, could team up, and on the other hand, that the children believe in themselves, understand that they form part of this society and, if they desire something in adulthood, they will definitely achieve it thanks to their perseverance! ", - the public figure said.

This year the participants of the project “I am Saint Nicholas!” have been 101 children from Kherson Special School. The project has involved a total of 247 children. About 60 Khersonians have volunteered for the project, over 200 donors and 80 partners of the Union have offered their assistance in the implementation of the project.

Traditionally, gifts were collected through social networks, where everyone could choose the child to present a gift.

Most of all, the children of this school dreamed of toys, sports equipment, kits for creative and applied arts. Children also dreamed of beautiful clothes and gadgets.

The project “I am Saint Nicholas!” has grown with its depth from the holiday of presenting dreamy gifts into the communicative platform that promotes family values, respect for the rights of the child and the need to raise children in the family.

For your information. The cooperation between Kherson Women Union and Kherson Special Boarding School of I-III levels has been going on since 2017, when the union members with their own efforts purchased concert costumes for the school band to perform in Bulgaria. Summarizing the results of the Charity Fest 2017 held by Kherson Women Union, the proceeds from the tickets sale went to the purchase of new stage costumes for the school. The pupils of the school were invited to the children's festival of talents “Give a holiday to children”, which takes place every year at “Fabrika” shopping and leisure center, and to the social performance based on E.T.A. Hoffman's “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” – “Maybe it was really true ?”.