As many of you know, the Saco Bay Sunset Rotary Club was awarded a Disaster Relief Grant of $25,000 to replace a Convent Roof and make other improvements to house refugees from war-torn parts of Ukraine. Here is a heartfelt expression of thanks from the Sister Superior of the Convent:
Dear American Friends,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2023!
I am writing to you from Ukraine, from the Catechetical House of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Anne, which has now been named Peace Shelter through Rotary International. My name is Sister Veronika (Solomiya Yaniv) and I am the Sister Superior of this House.
In my first words, I want to thank you very much for the support you have given us in helping people suffering from the war that is going on in our country. A heartfelt "God bless you!" Since the beginning of the war, we have become a place of refuge for about 30 people (the number changes due to constant rotation), refugees in the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine where the heaviest fighting is taking place and where the destruction is unimaginably high. They are mainly single mothers with children. Their husbands and fathers are largely dead and their homes no longer exist.
Thanks to your help, especially Rotary Club of Saco Bay Sunset, District 7780, and the Rotary Club Lublin Centrum of Poland, our house got a new roof and improved thermal insulation which gives these people a substitute for real home warmth in the harsh winter conditions here. Our house has never hosted so many people on a permanent basis. There are only five nuns here. The house has so far been adapted to the modest and austere conditions of religious life. Now we have to look at it differently if we want to help these people saved from the war, especially the young children.
In the current winter conditions, with the aggressor attacking Ukraine's critical infrastructure, the western, calmer part of Ukraine is expecting new refugees - this time from the big cities; refugees from the cold and darkness. We are trying to prepare for this circumstance by enlarging the living space as much as possible (for example by remodeling the space of our chapel) for which we are dependent on outside help. The coordinator of this outside help became, on its own initiative, the Rotary Club Lublin Center from Poland for which we are grateful.
The photos show how an effort is being made by the nuns to provide as normal as possible life for the refugees with the children in school, in plays, and eating family-style meals together.
