In December 2018, there was CHRISTMAS JOY EVERYWHERE – not only among the children and young people in Lithuania and the social workers on site, but also among us as a board team! Please find enclosed our thank you letter for your amazing support, a brief review of our activities over the past year, and the announcement of our sponsorship trip that will take place in September 2019.
Dear friends, supporters and sponsors!
We would like tothank you for your loyal and generoussupport in 2018 and for your Christmas donation . Thanks to your help, we were able to effectively support the 30 children in the children’s village Marijampoles and the young people in the PATRIA program last year, and also to carry out our popular Christmas campaign again. On behalf of the Children’s Village and PATRIA teams as well as our association, we would like to thank you very much for all the donations with which we were able to finance the support of our projects as well as the gifts for the children and young people, mothers and social workers and the Christmas celebrations. In total, we were pleased to receive donations for the Christmas campaign amounting to almost 11,000 euros. We are very touched by the great commitment and loyalty of our friends and supporters as well as our corporate donor cosnova to our Lithuania project.
All the children, whether the smaller ones in the Children’s Village of Marijampoles or the bigger ones in the PATRIA program, were happy about the personal letters from their sponsors and friends and about the practical sports bags, which they can put to good use. The PATRIA team described this year’s Christmas party as follows: “The week before Christmas was very intense for us. The young people participated in the preparation of the festivities and PATRIA took care of the food and gifts. Together we cooked, decorated the rooms, prepared a game of questions and had a lot of fun with a photo session by the Christmas tree. The core of the evening was the answers to the questions. The young people listened to each other, sensitively shared their Christmas experiences and said which Christmas traditions they would like to keep in the future. What the teens liked best was the “photo gift wall” with photos of last year’s activities. The youth were allowed to take these photos with them. We are all grateful for the donations from Germany that made this beautiful Christmas possible.”
We look back on an active year 2018: with benefit dinner on April 26, 2018 in the restaurant “Alter Haferkasten”, where we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our Lithuania project. With the preparation of the “Annual Report 2017” on the results of the PATRIA program. With sponsor trip on Pentecost weekend and several days of interactive program with the young adults. With a visit to the children in the Children’s Village Marijampole on Pentecost Sunday. With many conversations via Skype with the management teams of the Children’s Village and PATRIA. With our annual general meeting, which we had the pleasure of holding at the premises of our corporate donor cosnova in Sulzbach. With a working trip by Ingrid and Otmar Debald in November to have intensive discussions with Bishop Norvila and Reverend Donatas about the future of the Children’s Village. (We will report on further developments in the next newsletter). And with the implementation of the 2018 Christmas campaign, the constant of our activities over all the years of our existence.
Our sponsorship trip this year will take place in the fall, from September 5 to 8, 2019. We would like to invite you to join us and get to know our children in the Children’s Village Marijampole and our young people from the PATRIA program personally. Please reserve this date. More information to follow.
In early February 2019, we mailed out donation receipts – for the 2018 sponsorship program and Christmas campaign. If you have not received a donation receipt by mistake, please contact Ingrid Debald.
We look forward to continuing our exchange with you, dear friends and supporters, this year. We wish you and your families all the best for 2019 – above all, stay healthy!
With warm regards
Yours Ingrid and Otmar Debald
and the team of “Children’s Villages in Lithuania e.V.”.
