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Our Life | Наше життя March | Березень 2021 5 Marianna Zajac REFLECTIONS FROM THE UNWLA PRESIDENT Christ has risen! He has risen indeed! May joy and peace of mind reign in your hearts during this season of Easter, the Resurrection of Christ! May health, love, happiness, and well-being come into your homes, may your spirits become brighter and your hearts be filled with love. Wishing you every earthly blessing! When preparing to write this issue’s article, which was to focus on the impact of the UNWLA’s mission and therefore its projects, I thought about the steadfastness of our organization’s goals and how the UNWLA has outshone the society assessments of some intellectuals and public policy specialists. I remembered when, back at the 2002 UNWLA Convention in Sarasota, I was asked by our Honorary Member Sophia Hewryk, who was Second Vice President at the time, to address the issue of membership. I tapped the work of Robert D. Putnam, a Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, and his groundbreaking book Bowling Alone (2000). Professor Putnam’s research, based on vast data, showed how our American society has become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, and neighbors. Professor Putnam warns that the fabric of our connections with each other has deteriorated, socially impoverishing our lives and communities. He drew on nearly 500,000 interviews to show that we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, see friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. We’re even “bowling alone”: more Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues. He shows how changes in work, family structure, age, suburban life, television, computers, and other factors have contributed to this decline. Professor Putnam then cites data showing that membership in traditional civic organizations has declined but that some organizations have grown – mass-memb er groups that do not foster face-to-face interaction and where "the only act of membership consists in writing a check for dues or perhaps occasionally reading a newsletter." Although these conclusions and data were written about two decades ago, I think we would all agree that Professor Putnam’s research is still relevant. The pandemic may have exaggerated these dynamics even further. But you and I can contradict Professor Putnam’s conclusions with this fact: The UNWLA is an organization that not only asks its members to “write a check for dues” or perhaps “read an occasional newsletter” but also requests commitment. And the UNWLA is quite successful in engaging women who are willing to make that commitment, to give of themselves for the greater good of our Ukrainian family, wherever it may be. It is through this dedication that our mission is fulfilled, that we touch the lives of so many, resulting in heartwarming feedback from the recipients of our organization’s congregate efforts. In the pages of this issue, you will be able to read the reactions and gratitude of people from all walks of life, the common denominator being that the UNWLA has extended a helping hand to each. Our help is not merely financial – we become invested in the person, in families, in the communities we help. As President of the UNWLA since 2008, I have had the opportunity and great privilege to interact with many of these people, often with another member of the UNWLA National Board: we’ve seen the tears of gratitude of the villagers of Ivano-Frankivsk oblast affected by the 2008 floods; we’ve heard the cheers of “diakuyu” from the students of the Ivan Bohun Military Academy; we’ve witnessed the innocent smiles of the orphans at the summer camps organized by now Vladyka Stepan Sus; we’ve felt the heartache of the injured young soldiers in the military hospitals of Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, and Lviv, and that of the families often left behind; we’ve been told of the warm surprise felt by the babusia living alone who could not understand how women across the vast Atlantic knew about her needs; we’ve heard the personal accounts and words of gratitude from multitudes of scholarship/grant recipients of our Scholarship Program; we’ve listened to the beautiful voices of the seminarians of the Kyiv Catholic Seminary as they shared their talents with us ... We all share in this fruit of our commitment and dedication! Thank you!
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