Two million roubles were collected
in one day at a charity gift fair on 25 September – “White Flower Day” – in the
Marfo-Marinsky housing complex. The money will be used for a ward in the
children’s hospice in the same district. Its director, paediatrician Ksenia
Kovalenok, said the hospice will use it to refurbish rooms, to buy special beds
and materials for maintenance, and within six months, to open the new in-patient
ward. The accounts for expenditure using the money donated will be published on
the website Miloserdie.ru (Милосердие.ру).

The hospice will care for children
with cancer and other incurable illnesses. The mobile team of the hospice will
start work on 3 October, visiting 25 families with sick children daily. The
in-patient part of the hospice will have nine beds. As well as doctors and
nurses it will be staffed by a psychologist, a social worker, an art therapist,
and nursing sisters from the Order of St Dmitri. All its services will be free
of charge. Requests for assistance should be addressed by telephone to (495)
951-02-50.

For their donations,
the participants in the fair were given the symbol of the event – a white
flower. “White Flower Day” was first celebrated in 1911 by order of Tsar
Nicholas II and soon became one of the main charity events in Russia. Funds
collected were used for the treatment of TB, for orphans, and wounded soldiers during
the war.

е-mail: diaconia@yandex.ru

http://www.asi.org.ru/ASI3%5Crws_asi.nsf/va_WebPages/242FA9F75FB40906C3257917003C0401Rus