As in years past, the Kyiv Office of UUARC organized summer camps for orphans and needy children of Ukraine. This year the Executive Board of UUARC designated $8,000 for this project. The Lviv Office received $6,000 for a similar program. With donations to SUM and Plast youth camps in Ukraine, in total UUARC spent $19,000 on youth camps in Ukraine.

Two 18-day camps were organized by the Kyiv office, one in Tatarbunar in Odessa oblast, and in Ochakiv on the Black Sea in the Mykolayiv oblast. Ninety orphans and needy children, 9-15 years old, from Luhansk region were invited to these camps. Some of these children had horrendous backgrounds - there were stories of children being found abandoned and living in dog houses, before being adopted by families in the Luhansk region. Others had compromised immune systems and pneumonia. The curative effects of the sea air should help them to stay healthy throughout the year.

The camps not only provided the children with rest and relaxation, which included swimming and other sports, but the counselors conducted Shevchenko poetry recitation contests and Ukrainian history competitions. The children and their counselors have sent heartfelt thank you letters to UUARC for the wonderful experience. This, as all of our programs, can only be offered to these children thanks to the generosity of the Ukrainian-American community's contributions to the UUARC General Fund.