Coloring books go to Ukrainian refugee camp
Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary providing books
More than 1,500 hand-colored messages of hope for Ukrainian children in refugee camps, roughly 2,200 coloring books and almost 300 boxes of colored pencils are ready to be packed and shipped from Bucyrus to a Ukrainian refugee camp in Warsaw, Poland.
“Our Children to Your Children,” a project of the Bucyrus Salvation Army Women’s Auxiliary, has involved students from every school district in the county.
“We could have done just Bucyrus, but we thought no, let’s go countywide and get everyone,” said Pam Holtshouse, a member of the women’s auxiliary. “There’s wasn’t a school system that turned me down; everyone said yes.”
“I think one of the things that we’re excited about,” said Major Debbra Grace, who commands the Bucyrus Salvation Army with her husband, Tom. “This brought some unity at a time when there’s so much dissention – politically, COVID, all that stuff. And this is something that everybody felt was good, and they could get on board with.”
Donations to the project have come from all across the county, too, Holtshouse said. Contributions ranged from a $1,000 donation from the Community Foundation for Crawford County to $4 handed to an auxiliary member by a friend she saw at a store.
Ohio Mutual Insurance paid to print the coloring pages and covers – designed by local artist Sandy Laipply. The Bucyrus Kiwanis and Rotary clubs each donated $500.
Kids at refugee camps are bored
Originally, the plan was to just have all the children in the county color a picture to send, but someone reached out to a refugee camp and was told the children there were bored and needed something to do, Holtshouse explained. “So we came up with the idea of coloring
books.”
They still sent out coloring pages to local schools. On the left side of the page is a sunflower – Ukraine’s national flower – with “Be brave” written in English and Ukrainian. The right side was left blank, allowing children to write or draw a personal message.
“And they’ve just done the most precious things,” Holtshouse said.
“You can see the difference; this is a 3-year-old from a preschool and obviously this is an older child,” Grace said, holding up examples. “Then some of them are writing messages in them ... they’re just sweet. Something to do, a
message of hope, and that you’re not in this alone, even though you’re over there and we’re over here. We’re praying for you and we’re concerned.”
Some of the students looked up how to write messages in Ukrainian, Holtshouse added.
“We did preschoolers, and it’s just scribbles, but it’s just so sweet they got to participate,” she said.
People donated 239 books for the project. The group ordered an additional 2,000, Holtshouse said. Working with a book distributor from Ashland, they were able to get the books for 40 cents each. Crayons don’t ship well, they were told, so they’re sending colored pencils instead. They hope to be able to order more of those, too.
Students collected other items, too
In connection with the project, Wynford elementary school students had a donation drive for items, including socks, shirts and pencils.
“I’ve been in communication with the Salvation Army officers in Warsaw, Poland. They’re serving thousands and thousands of refugees and one of the things that they were in need of was new socks and T-shirts,” Grace said. “So the kids from Wynford started a collection, and I’ve had some other people bringing them in, too.”
Last week, auxiliary members and volunteers – including Crawford County commissioners and Bucyrus Mayor Jeff Reser – spent a day preparing books for shipment. The pages colored by local children were attached inside the front of each book, and a printed page was attached to the cover.
When they ran out of pages colored by children, some of the volunteers colored their own.
It proved more of a job than they had expected, Holtshouse confessed. She’d arrived at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, and despite the help, volunteers were just getting started on taping covers onto the books by 1 p.m.
“People have been coming and going all day long,” she said.
Contributions still accepted
The next hurdle will be shipping the books and other items to a Salvation Army refugee camp in Warsaw.
“The big push is to get donations for shipping, and we’re continuing to take them,” Holtshouse said.
Contributions can be mailed to the Bucyrus Salvation Army, P.O. Box 552, Bucyrus, Ohio 44820. Write “Children to Children Project” on the memo line.
“Anything that doesn’t go directly to this project will go directly, 100%, to Salvation Army Ukrainian relief,” Grace said. “It goes there; it doesn’t even stop here. I just forward it.” ggoble@gannett.com 419-559-7263