Press Release, 7.02.2024

On 23 and 25 December, charity Christmas parties were held at the central office of the Yabloko party for the children of Ukrainian refugees – wards of the Civic Assistance Committee and Lighthouse Charity Foundation. We are summing up the results of the charitable New Year parties.

We understand how important it is to organise a New Year celebration for children whose lives have been crippled by war.

There were more than 250 children at the New Year parties in Yabloko, many came with their parents. We tried to arrange a real celebration for them. We decorated our office, decorated the Christmas tree, and thought about where our guests would take souvenir photos.

Our employees and volunteer friends organised interesting master classes, where the children made New Year’s gifts themselves, tried to apply face painting and posed for a real caricature artist.

Children played, sang, met Father Frost, wrote letters to him, took photographs and immediately received printed photographs.

We prepared shelves with books for the children, and everyone could take a book as a gift. In December, we organised a bookcrossing event specifically for this purpose (special thanks to everyone who brought books or ordered delivery from book stores). We now have a reserve for future meetings.

We collected money for the children’s parties together: both Yabloko employees and supporters participated. Thank you all very much!

However, not all kids could come to our office for a party this year. We sent sweet packages for them and Civic Assistance volunteers handed them over these presents. Another good news is that we were able to raise more funds than we had planned on the minimum. Therefore, in addition to New Year’s gifts, we also could prepare food packages (cereals, pasta, sugar, canned food, personal hygiene items, etc.)

In total this year we raised 861,152 roubles (in 444 donations). Here’s how the funds were spent:

Total funds: 861,152.35 roubles

Expenditures:

New Year’s gifts (chocolate sets, gift packaging):  280,000 roubles

Tea, coffee, cookies for party treats: 36,172 roubles

Expandable materials for master classes: 91, 884 roubles

Photo zone design: 12 481 roubles

Hall decoration (Christmas decorations, lights, etc.): 60,294 roubles

Expenses for the celebration (caricature artist, face painter, animator, etc.): 64,700 roubles

Printing of photos (as party souvenirs): 26,740 roubles

Purchase of food packages for refugees: 186,114.35 roubles

Charitable gifts for children: 95,000 roubles

Other expenses (transport, etc.): 7,767 roubles

TOTAL EXPENSES: 861,152.35 roubles

Such holidays bring joy not only to the children for whom we tried, but each of us was pleased almost more than our guests. There was so much kindness, warmth, love in this – everything that is lacking in the world today.

Thank you to everyone!