FRUA ORPHANAGE SUPPORT

 

 

Why we care:

FRUA recognizes that, while our children have found their forever families, hundreds of thousands of children remain in orphanages throughout Eastern Europe. Therefore, FRUA is dedicated to providing support to these orphan children. Our Orphanage Support program accomplishes this goal through various means.

Orphanage support funds are donated to FRUA by members, friends, families, and a few non-profit organizations  - FRUA children have raised money for orphanage support programs at their birthday parties, through school fund raisers, and through chapter-organized donation collections like Pennies for Playgrounds and even a photographic orphange support effort called the Orphans of Belarus. Extended family members and friends

have remembered orphans in their wills and bequeathed funds to FRUA to use toward orphanage support.

Generous people from all walks of life have provided funds to our orphanage support efforts. In the future, we look forward to expanding the help we get from corporations and hope to expand our volunteer capabilities to write grant requests for funds to support FRUA orphanage support projects.

How we provide orphanage support

FRUA funds and accomplishes some projects on our own, such as our playground builds. Over the past decade or more, FRUA has purchased therapeutic playground equipment, shipped it to a specific orphanage in the recipient country, and funded its installation. To date, FRUA has installed 17 therapeutic playgrounds in Romanian orphanages.

Beyond the playground builds, FRUA has provided grants to non-profits that offer assistance and support to orphans in Eastern Europe. Working with diverse entities such as the Peace Corp, FRUA has partially or fully funded physical improvements at orphanages from Ukraine to Belarus to the Republic of Georgia, such as repairing bathrooms, replacing windows, and installing washing machines.

FRUA has also provided funds to non-profits operating in Russia, such as MiraMed, to support their ongoing assistance to orphans. By partnering with MiraMed, FRUA helped provide medical assistance to orphans in St.Petersburg, Russia. FRUA contributions to art rehabilitation projects such as Maria's Children can help institutionalized children see that they have a future.

FRUA also coordinates a Matching Grant Program that helps our regional chapters do FRUA-sponsored projects in areas of interest specific to their local membership adoption countries or regions.

 

Current Projects

Upcoming FRUA orphanage support projects include:

*  A fall 2009 project by Physicians with Heart in orphanages in the Republic of Georgia.

*  A grant to Playgrounds of Peace, which is building a playground at an orphanage in Poland.

* $1,500 to support Russian projects of Maria’s Children International (www.mariaschildren.org), a Minneapolis based 501.(c)3 that funds art rehabilitation programs that provide social, intellectual and psychological support for disadvantaged children.  Maria Yeliseyeva founded Maria's Children in Moscow's orphanages in 1993, combining art therapy with multi-system support to help children in often hopeless situations to view the world with hope.