Iași, Romania, May 13, 2019
Photo: basilica.ro
The joy of Pascha was shared with thousands of children from poor Moldovan families this year through the Paschal campaign “Grains of Paschal Light 2019.” The program initiated by Fr. Dan Damaschin, a priest at the Clinical Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Iași, was able to gather gift packages for more than 4,000 children in all, reports the Basilica News Agency.
The packages, each worth $55, included shoes, pants, shirts, several months of diapers for small children, toothpaste, and toothbrushes. The gifts were delivered during Holy Week.
The “Voice of Life” Association, with which Fr. Damaschin cooperates, identified children from many families facing crisis situations, accidents, incurable diseases or expensive treatments, houses destroyed by natural disasters, and single-parent families.
Donations towards the gift packages came from Iași and throughout Romania and Moldova and abroad. “There were people from outside—a group from Ireland that stood out in a wonderful way and supported several hundred children, even from Germany, from several parishes we had large donations,” Fr. Dan noted.
It is very touching, Fr. Dan noted, to see children to offer their own money made from items they made with their own hands, or students giving up their pocket change, or grandmothers offering what little they have.
Moreover, a group of dentists have worked in villages with Fr. Dan, offering free consultations. Work on a new tutoring and activities center for children with limited material means has been underway in Iași since the fall as well, and construction on seven houses for large families and single mothers with their children will begin soon. And Fr. Dan will organize a camp for children at the sea in the summer as well.
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