Almost two years into the war in Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, and families throughout the country are without food, water, heat or electricity.
Instead of Christmas carols during the holiday season, they are hearing the howl of air-raid sirens and the roar of tanks, planes, and attack drones.
Many children have lost their parents and their homes; others are mentally or physically disabled as a result of the conflict.
To help alleviate their distress, Santa Barbara nonprofit World Dance for Humanity (WD4H) has been getting immediate aid to those in need. Last year the group donated $210,000 to provide food, wood stoves, basic supplies, and medicine to internally displaced refugees.
The relief effort is facilitated through the Ukrainian Women of Santa Barbara, led by Tatyana Marchenko and Julia Rubanova. All donations go to trusted aid partners who are running shelters in Kherson, Kyiv, Brovary and Odessa, and cancer wards in Mykolaiv.
World Dance meets with these partners every Sunday on Zoom to hear about what’s going on and offer emotional and practical support.
In December, the dance group is donating critically needed items like food, solar lights, quilts, gifts for children, and in response to requests from all the shelters and hospitals — Christmas trees.
“Children don’t stop believing in miracles,” said Janet Reineck, WD4H executive director. “The thought of a Christmas tree gives them hope for the return to a happy childhood and a peaceful country without grief, suffering, and the horrors of war.”
World Dance is answering the call, providing 15 trees ($100 each, with ornaments and transport) to the three refugee centers and bomb shelters in Brovary, Mykolaiv’s Cancer Center, Burn Center, Children’s Hospital and Refugee Center, the Irpin Refugee Center near Kyiv, the Ismail Refugee Center in the Odessa region, and the Ivano-Frankivsk Orphan Social Rehabilitation Center in western Ukraine.
In Ukraine, Christmas and New Year are the biggest holidays, with festivities starting in early December and lasting through January. The “Yalinka” (Christmas tree) is the most important symbol of the season, representing joy, warmth, and the promise of good things in the New Year, Reineck said.
Last year, with war raging in many parts of the country, few people or institutions had trees to light up the dark days of winter. The government put up one big tree, “The Symbol of Ukrainian Resistance” in Kyiv, decorated with the flags of all countries helping Ukraine.
To save on electricity and maintain a cloak of darkness against Russian attacks, there were no lights on the tree.
The trees will be up well into January as the focal point of Ukraine’s month-long holiday season, but they’ll be put up on a new date this year.
In an effort to “abandon all vestiges of Russian heritage,” all the dates that used to coincide with Russian holidays have been changed.
St. Nicholas Day, which always began the season on Dec. 19, is now Dec. 7. Christmas, which used to be Jan. 7, will be on Dec. 25 in solidarity with the USA and Europe.
The Feast of the Epiphany (when Ukrainians dip in freezing water as a symbol of renewal), which used to end the season on Jan. 18, will happen on Jan. 6.
Ukrainians will start making their New Year wishes 10 seconds before midnight on Dec. 31.
“We know what they’ll be wishing for: an end to the war,” Reineck said. “We hope our Christmas trees will show that we are with them in spirit, wishing for the same.”
For more about World Dance for Humanity, visit https://worlddanceforhumanity.org/.