The Philadelphia Archeparchy helps flood victims in Western Ukraine

Friday, 03 July 2020, 12:33

In response to the plea of His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, with the blessing of Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia has launched a fundraising campaign to help people affected by the recent floods in western Ukraine. The first tranche of $25,000 was wired on July 2 to Ivano-Frankivsk Archeparchy, Kolomyia and Chernivtsi eparchies. As of July 2, more than $32,500 was raised through a setup fundraiser on archieparchial Facebook page and mailed-in individual donations. Pastors were asked to take collections on June 27-28 and July 4-5 in their parishes.

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"The geography of donors to our Philadelphia campaign is wide and impressive. Not only the faithful of our arheparchy responded generously to our appeal, but so did people of goodwill from 21 states in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, and even Ukraine. More than 400 people made contributions to the Facebook fundraiser. About 90% of the funds come from Ukrainians living abroad wishing to help their brothers and sisters who have been affected by the flood,” explains the Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia Andriy Rabiy.

Since it is difficult to respond to the particular needs of the victims remotely, the Archeparchy decided to transfer funds to the local eparchies. "Financial support allows us to be both quick and flexible. Affected regions are primarily agricultural. People do not have high income and depend mainly on their farms. They lost crops, their houses are partially destroyed. It is our Christian duty to help them in any way we can - spiritually and materially. They are in our prayers daily. And since we do not know their specific needs, we trust and rely on the competence of local church relief agency “Caritas” to provide help to those who need it most," emphasized Bishop Andriy.

He noted that the Archeparchy has a long history of helping Ukraine in crisis: there were collections to help military and chaplains, for purchase medical supplies and other needs of individual eparchies and parishes. Faithful of the Archeparchy and all the eparchies in the USA also supported the construction of the Resurrection Cathedral in Kyiv.

As parish collections are taken, individual donations are received daily by mail and on Facebook, the fundraising campaign is going strong. The Archeparchy has decided to make the first distribution of funds to help the affected as soon as possible. Subsequent transfers will be made as funds are received. The Archeparchy will present reports on the money was used to help people.