Picture: Green Forest Orphanage: Main Building

Since I last wrote about Life2Orphans, I have become a volunteer coordinator for my daughter's orphanage. It is known as Green Forest Orphanage or Zeleny Gai or Zeleny Guy or Zeleniy Gay.


I really had to think about this...

• Did I have the energy to put into this?



• Was the organization trust worthy?



• Would working with the organization allow me to help orphan's lives? In other words would my efforts make any impact.

I decided the answer to all these questions was a tentative yes.


So my name and email address were put onto the web site as the Green Forest Orphanage coordinator.





And within days women living in the Netherlands and New Zealand contacted me. They weren't adoptive parents. They just wanted to help. It was a pleasure to exchange information with them. One of my jobs as an orphanage coordinator is to answer questions about the orphanage and discuss the current needs.


The main purpose of my position is to advocate for my daughter's orphanage. This means fund raising and raising awareness of the orphanage's needs within my greater community. In other words, I can be as creative as I want. Right now I am not feeling very creative. I am approaching my church. And I am thinking about collection donations for eBay.


Life2Orphans has an eBay Auction volunteer. If I get donations of items like books, CDs, toys, etc.. the eBay volunteer will take care of almost everything else. I need to verify sold items get into the mail.


The ebay Auctions have worked out very well. I just have to share the recycling story.


Sally [name changed for the story] purchased a book on tape. She exchanged a couple emails with Life2Orphans' eBay volunteer and learned this was a fund raiser for Ukrainian orphans. Sally listened to the book. Then she donated it back to Life2Orphans so that it could be sold again.


Picture: Green Forest Children in their bedroom. One of the orphanage's needs is new beds for the children.





One of my other tasks is to raise funds for an orphanage assessment every 2 years. Life2Orphans has Ukrainian volunteers who will travel to the orphanage. They take photos and discuss the current needs with the orphanage director. I was recently able to pay for an assessment and got 84 photos as well as updates on various needs.


I really respect the orphanage director Igor Aleksandrovich now. I have some stories that I will share another day.


I need to get to the swimming pool now. My daughter is calling.. and isn't very patient. :)