Salesian Solidarity Generates Happiness and Gratitude

Salesian Solidarity Generates Happiness and Gratitude

(ANS – Odessa, Ukraine – April 1, 2022) – “We are truly happy and grateful for the affection that Salesians around the world are showing us, bringing all these wonderful gifts to meet the needs of our parishioners,” says Fr. Edward Mackiewicz, rector of the basilica of St. Peter the Apostle in Odessa, unable to hide his happiness as he moves around the premises of the youth center of his parish, now used as a warehouse to store the boxes full of foodstuffs that have arrived thanks to international Salesian solidarity.

There are sacks of flour, cans of oil, baby food, crates and boxes of pasta, and more. “People come here, and we share with them what we have, what we ourselves have received,” he continues. “There really are many people who are in need, but despite everything, we are indeed managing and happy about doing so.”

To work for the needs of the Ukrainian population in the best possible way, Salesians Fr. Jacek Zdzieborski, director of the Salesian Mission Office in Warsaw, and Fr. Piotr Gozdalski, director of the Salesian Missionary Foundation Don Bosco, are continuing their visit to the works of the Salesian Family in Lviv, Ukraine. After meeting with the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, they went to the homes of their Salesian confreres to encourage them and to take note of their needs.

Meanwhile, Germany continues to make its great effort of cooperation that serves to ensure precisely the needs of the Salesians in Ukraine and neighboring countries. Fr. Josef Grünner, in charge of the Salesian Mission Office in Bonn, reported on the donations collected by his institute together with Don Bosco Mondo, the German Province, the Don Bosco Foundation, and other Salesian partners: a truly significant amount, all committed to this emergency and to successive projects.

The various German Salesian realities have already made it possible to purchase 300 beds with blankets and pillows, which, thanks to the assistance of the Salesian Mission Office of Warsaw, have already arrived in Lviv; with about a third of the funds raised, four other projects have been launched: to equip a bakery and a laundry in the center hosting the refugees in Lviv; to increase the capacity of the same center by another 40 units; to supply it with a further important supply of medicines, and to give economic support to the Salesian communities of Romania and Moldavia also engaged in welcoming the population fleeing from Ukraine.

And while the Salesian Don Bosco Jugendhilfe Weltweit, active in Beromünster, Switzerland, and also part of the German Province, has participated in this huge solidarity effort with a large donation for the Salesians from Slovakia, the German Province has also made a direct commitment to welcoming refugees: 46 are welcomed in Munich, more than half of them minors and 8 orphans; another 30 in Aschau/Waldwinkel, 20 in Beromünster, 1 woman in Bonn, 3 Ensdorf families, 9 people in Pfaffendorf.

In the near future, there are also plans to welcome 12 young people from Lviv to the house in Benediktbeuern and to place an entire class of 15 Ukrainian students at the Salesian school in Essen in the summer.

“I bow before all our supporters, our friends. God bless you!” concludes Fr. Mackiewicz, as he proudly displays the cross given to him by the bishop early last month, which, he says, represents in this time of war “the strength of God’s love.”