We've done it! Appeal raises funds! (From The Westmorland Gazette)

We've done it! Appeal raises funds!

1:52pm Friday 6th June 2003 in News By Karen Barden

A fund-raising champion is celebrating victory after clinching £40,000 to save desperate lives in the Ukraine.

Ten Kiev street children will soon have their first proper home and countless others will be given food, health care and clothing, thanks to visionary Kendal grandmother Pat Wright and her charity New Beginnings, reports Karen Barden.

Horrified by the plight of the city’s 8,000 homeless urchins, Mrs Wright returned to South Lakeland, pledging to help them. Within a year, her charity raised £20,000, enough to buy a house. She then looked to Westmorland Gazette readers to find another £20,000 to convert and equip the first Ukrainian “family” home for street children. Her New Home, New Beginnings appeal went out at the end of January - and this week the grand total has been raised.

“I have been totally overwhelmed by the kindness of readers,” said Mrs Wright, awarded an MBE for her charity work. “We couldn’t have done this without them.

“To have raised so much in such a short time is remarkable, especially when there are so many other good causes. I thank the thousands who have helped from the bottom of my heart.

“From schoolchildren to pensioners, whole communities in South Lakeland and Eden have taken this on board. It obviously struck a deep chord.” Money flooded in response to Gazette stories and a New Home, New Beginnings shopping list, itemising equipment and goods needed. “I got a letter and £20 from a girl who had read about the appeal and wanted to give her birthday money. Hundreds of £10 and £20 notes were sent by readers in envelopes,” said Mrs Wright. “People the length and breadth of the country had seen the Gazette and wanted to help.” The two largest single donations came from the Eric Wright Trust, currently developing The Westmorland Gazette site, which gave £2,000 and from Christians in the Netherlands, who collected 5,000 euros, around £3,500.

Work has already started on the large detached property in the village of Alexanderka, seven miles from the capital. Set in 2,500 square metres of land, the recently built house is to be called Genesis. Its main living area will be the Kendal Room and pictures on the wall will show the children where money came from.

They are to be cared for by a staff headed by Christian foster parents, Olena and Alexander Donskyy, whose son Andrey lives in Kendal. The Holy Trinity Church in Kiev is supporting the project.

Winter for Kiev’s waifs and strays is a cold, bleak daily battle for survival. Gripped by hunger, they escape sub zero temperatures by sheltering in stinking sewers. Sickness and disease, including AIDS, is rife.

Children destined for Genesis have already been selected and are undergoing extensive rehabilitation and health programmes in a half-way house. “From the outset, we wanted to provide a real home for these children, who have only ever known despair,” said Mrs Wright. “We wanted them to have parent figures they could love, respect and trust.

“I always said if we could just save one child, he or she might be the next president of the Ukraine, a person who makes ground breaking leaps in medicine or science, or just a run-of-the-mill decent human being, who will go on and try to help other people.” She hopes the British Ambassador in Kiev will perform the opening ceremony, some time in October. “For me it means everything that one group of children will, this winter, be taken from hell and placed in a loving home.”