Metro Atlanta nonprofit raises $38K to send Ukrainian kids to camp

ATLANTA - Ukrainians are still fighting for survival more than a year-and-a-half after Russia invaded their nation. Children are among the people suffering the most. A metro Atlanta humanitarian group is trying to help young people reclaim some of their childhood. HelpingUkraine.us has raised $38,000 to send kids to summer camp far away from the fighting.

They all hail from the war-torn regions of Ukraine. Some have lost their parents. But, for at least a couple of weeks, those kids get the chance to be kids again.

Oleksandra Cherednychenko is from Donetsk, one of the areas hardest hit. Russia invaded her region back in 2014, before the official start of the current war. Oleksandra is only 14. War is virtually the only thing she knows.

"I feel bad when I see that too much people die for me and for my freedom," Oleksandra said through a translator. "This war, for me, it’s not one-and-a-half years. It’s all my life."

But for the past two weeks, Oleksandra took a break from the horror of death and destruction. She’s part of a group of a 130 young people who got to live like normal kids. They got to go to summer camp.

"I’m happy that I’m here, and I have time to rest from all this horror that happens around me in my city," she said through a translator.

Campers for two weeks hiked, went rafting and just played.

"It’s touched me inside how a person born in this beautiful city in the eastern part of Ukraine didn’t see a peaceful life," said Olga Gorman moved to Atlanta from the same Donetsk region as Oleksandra just before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Gorman volunteers with helping Ukraine and helped organized the fundraiser sent the kids to the camp in the Carpathian Mountains.

"You want kids to feel happiness. And you want your kids to smile," Gorman said. "They work with a psychologist in the camp. They have a normal life."

They see the future of their country and this future is in the eyes of our kids.

"If we, people around the world, Americans, Ukrainians, people from every country will support kids, we will never have war in the future in this world," Gorman said.

Gorman wants to raise more donations to send more kids to camp every few weeks and give them the chance to be kids again.

You can donate to helpingukraine.us if you want to help send children to camp.