New! Shoeboxes Delivered to Ukraine

 Cranleigh’s ‘Rotary Shoeboxes’ for needy children in the Irpin area of Ukraine 2023/24

Distribution events on St Nicholas Day (6^th December) through to Christmas Day and up to early/mid-January.

A selection of (edited) messages + photos sent by our Ukrainian ‘partners’, namely members of Rotary Club "Kyiv-Sophia” and parishioners of the Irpin Bible Church.

 St Nicholas Day Shoebox Gifting 

“We know that you will be pleased to see photos that partially reflect the joy of the children who received your gifts. Let these smiles of our children, who have seen a lot of grief and destruction, bless the days before the New Year for you too. May the goodness which the Cranleigh pupils and community have shared return many times over!”

        Christmas Time Distributions

“Again, we want to share with you the incredible feeling of happiness to see the joy of children who receive Christmas gifts carefully collected by Cranleigh families. Today we handed shoeboxes to children in Grades 1-4 after a theatrical performance by talented volunteers in Rubezhivka (a village near Irpin), which was under Russian occupation for more than a month last year.”

      “When we distributed gifts to children in the Zdvizhevka Kindergarten, it was, once again, difficult for us to hold back tears, seeing the immediate joy on the children’s faces while listening to their performance, as they recited poems about the long-awaited peace, and for their dads to return from the front. One girl sitting on the right closed her eyes with her fists at that moment. The teacher later told us that her dad was killed at the front…… !”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Thanks to all in UK and Ukraine who helped ‘brighten’ Christmas for many families in Ukraine and UK: David Barry – Cranleigh Rotary.