Thanks to M&T’s a total of 76 children had a happier Christmas. 27 of those were from the Orphanage, 40 were from poor families and 9 from a large family with 5 adopted children. 45 of our M&T members participated in this action and 11 friends.
The Santa presents were a great success. Four mums Barbara Swan, Christine Koegl, Anne Alexander and Alia Radford with friends and families travelled down to Pacanow on Saturday 10th January in four very laden cars. Many of you will know that Pacanow is known for the fairy tale about Goat Matolek, quite often shown on Mini Mini channel. Whilst Pacanow will benefit from a new European Centre of Fairy Tales, currently being constructed, it otherwise is a small Polish village with traditional economic activity.
We started at the Dom Ojca Gwidona orphanage. We were given a warm welcome by Sister Adwenia and all of the nuns. All of the children were excited to see us but were very polite and well behaved. It is clear that the nuns work very hard to provide a loving caring environment for the children and deserve our support.
After lunch we were treated to a fine performance of the Nativity by all children. We then distributed gifts to all excited children who then opened everything together. During the visit we also provided Sister Adwenia, the director of the orphanage, with proceeds of our Christmas Bazar PLN 3400. These will be used to help teenagers who have to leave the orphanage when they reach 18. We also left the many second hand items for the needy children and families of the village. Afterwards we visited the Secondary School in Pacanow and were welcomed by Malgorzata Stanczyk the School Principal with many families. Here we also distributed gifts individually to all excited children and families. You can find pictures of the visit on the following link:
http://www.flickr.com/gp/72511383@N00/7B6JJp
Files include the name of the child. If you want to see a slideshow of all, click on the link above then click on the ‘Slideshow’ button above the pictures on the right side. To see the children’s names click on the ‘show info’ button whilst the slideshow is on. There are also some comments for some kids. You should find the picture of the child or family who you gave your present too. A small number of children and families were not available on the day, but rest assure all gifts will be distributed next week. I still have some letters at hand and some children have already written “thank you” notes, I will pass these to you at some point. A big thank you to everyone who provided Santa gifts and also to those who travelled down on the day. We can all take great satisfaction that in a small way we are helping make these peoples lives a bit better.
Alia Radford
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