On 9 March 2010 one of the members of our Board of Patrons, Natalya Shkilyonok, visited children living in a social shelter attached to Caravel to arrange a true family holiday with cooking beautiful tasty dishes, eating sweets and friendly talks! Caravel is the Center for Social Support to Family and Children where our project Children Want to Live at Home is implemented.
They started with cooking fruit salads. All children, young and old alike, took part in cooking. With the help of Natalya children washed, peeled, laid out kiwi, bananas, apples cut by them into salad dishes, poured them with yogurt, decorated with slices of tangerines, grapes, nuts, raisins and dried apricots. Boys turned out to be the most responsible cooks as it was them who did their utmost! Apparently, not without reason it is said that the best cookery experts are men! After preparing all salads everybody started to lay tables. The time for afternoon snack was coming in. It promised to be more substantial than usual and the outcome of the children’s efforts surpassed all their expectations!
Such a “kitchen” activity is one of the typical family activities contributing step by step to the roles of future fathers and mothers. But it is the activity that children without parental care living temporarily in a social shelter usually lack for.
We have heard not once of some person’s desire to help… But a lot of such persons do not know where this help is needed. Actually, there are many opportunities. Some people bring clothes for vulnerable families into State Centers for Social Support to Family and Children; others spend the part of their spare time taking care of a disabled child; still others adopt a child from a baby home. It is not difficult to do good – the main thing here is to have a desire to share your warmth with those who need it.
