SOPOT, Poland–The Via Stella Foundation, the joint initiative between credit unions in the U.S. and Poland that has been providing help to Ukrainian refugees and credit unions, has donated a small van to an orphanage that is home to Ukrainian children who have been evacuated to Poland due to the war.
The orphans are living at what had been a summer camp for generations of Poles and is known as Garczyn, the abbreviated version of their new home’s formal name, Powiatowe Centrum Mlodziezy w Garczynie. It was featured in CUToday.info here as part of a week-long series this summer on the Via Stella Foundation and its work in the two countries.
Challenges in Transporting Kids
As CUToday.info reported at the time, the camp is located in a somewhat rural area and one of the demands the camp was having challenges meeting was transporting children to doctors’ appointments, to go shopping or to attend additional classes.
The donated van, shown below, is to help solve some of those challenges. Keys to the van were presented to Garzcym Director Wieslaw Baryea by Rafal Matusiak, president of Poland’s national credit union trade association, the National Association of Co-operative Savings and Credit Unions (NASCCU).
Matusiak has also been instrumental in forming, funding and helping to oversee the Via Stella Foundation, which was formed along with Brian Branch, the former president of the World Council of Credit Unions, and Sue Mitchell of Mitchell Stankovic Associates.
Awards Presented
Separately, NASCCU recently held its XXXI National Conference of Credit Unions in Katowice, Poland, at which it presented its highest awards—the Feniks (which is Phoenix in Polish) for both this year and last (due to the pandemic).
This year, two Ukrainian organizations were recognized: the Ukrainian National Association of Savings and Credit Unions and the All-Ukrainian Association of Credit Unions.
Links to CUToday.info’s extensive coverage of the work being done by credit unions in Poland and Ukraine can be found here.
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