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Our Life | Наше життя 24 Irena Sawchyn , Holova, Branch 75 For more than 40 years, Branch 75 from Maple - wood N.J. has followed a marvelous and uninter - rupted tradition of distributing traditional Easter baskets to elderly parishioners of St. John the Bap - tist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Newark, N.J. Each year a Branch member requests a list of shut- ins from the parish, approximately ten individuals who would not be able to come to church to have their Easter basket blessed. Our members prepare a traditional koshyk with all the familiar items to be blessed and later served during Easter breakfast – eggs, krashanky, beets, butter and cheese, salt and pepper, fragrant kovbasa (donated by the Lazirko family from Olympic Market). Without fail, each basket includes a delicious babka baked by one of our members. On the day of distribution, volunteers gather in the church hall early on Holy Saturday to assemble the baskets, complete with an Easter greeting card from the Branch. The pastor of St. John performs the blessing ceremony over the baskets, after which our Soyuzanky visit the seniors in their homes or at a care facility, remaining to chat before the leaving the baskets. More often than not, the actual visit, and the conversation, is more important to our el - derly than are the baskets, as both visitors and re - cipients feel uplifted by the good deed. Unfortunately, this year, the coronavirus conta - gion prevented our Branch from proceeding with our annual plan. In early March, we already had received our list of ten seniors who we were plan - ning to visit, and our volunteers who were ready-to- go. However, the rapidly evolving situation around the coronavirus outbreak required that our mem - bers devise an alternate plan that would be safe for everyone involved. Instead of distributing baskets, our volunteers de - cided that this year our Branch would send Easter greeting cards to our elderly friends, mailed in time to arrive during Easter week. Once the cards were sent, our plans were to follow up with phone calls just before Easter. Xrystia Szkwarko took the lead in chairing this program, quickly ordering Ukraini - an-language cards from Canada, and soliciting vol - unteers to make phone calls. Ukrainian-language greetings were handwritten in the cards. To guar - antee that no contamination occurred, envelopes were sealed well in advance of being mailed. During the follow-up phone calls, our seniors expressed their deep appreciation for the Easter cards. Many were lonely and isolated due to the coronavirus quarantine and were unable to share the Easter holidays with family or friends. Our cards were an unexpected delight, an indication that someone – the parish, our Branch, UNWLA – remembered them during what should have been a most joyful celebratory season. One 97-year old senior responded to us with a hand-written note of thanks, writing that our card was the only contact she had during the Easter season. While our elderly neighbors were grateful, the Branch’s Easter outreach program was extremely rewarding for our members, as well, and involved such a minimal effort and cost, that we decided to expand the program and send cards for more oc - casions and to more recipients. Our next outreach was to send Mother’s Day cards to the mothers of our members, most of them elderly. Lovely Ukrain - ian-themed cards were purchased again from Can - ada, thoughtful Ukrainian-language greetings were written out, and the cards were mailed to arrive before Mother’s Day. Again, the response was ex - Branch 75 initiates new outreach programs When all you have is lemons...
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