Strategic Seasonal Support: Operation Santa
Project: Child Welfare & Education | Beneficiaries: 334 Children of Fallen Heroes
The holiday season in a war zone is a critical window for psychosocial intervention. For children who have lost a parent to the conflict, the holidays often magnify grief. "Operation Santa" was not just a gift drive; it was a targeted campaign to provide material stability and emotional continuity for families coping with combat loss.
Precision Aid: 334 Individual Cases Managed In partnership with Children of Heroes, we established a direct feedback loop—receiving letters from 334 children who had lost one or both parents to the war. This allowed us to bypass generic aid and deliver exactly what was needed to support the surviving family unit.
Educational Continuity: We identified a critical lack of access to remote schooling. In response, we deployed 83 new tablets to low-income families, ensuring that children like the daughter of one of our beneficiaries—who had missed months of school—could finally return to the virtual classroom.
Household Stabilization: The requests often reflected survival needs rather than childhood whims. 15-year-old Veronika, whose father fell in combat, requested a washing machine to help her mother manage a household of three siblings. Thanks to donors from Brooklyn’s Nova Khvylka School, we delivered the appliance (infrastructure) alongside an iPhone (social connection), stabilizing the home environment.
Logistics at Scale: The 40-Foot Container To extend the impact beyond individual gifts, we coordinated the logistics for a 40-foot shipping container filled with high-quality winter clothing, school supplies, and essential goods.
Broader Reach: This bulk shipment is currently being distributed through our partner networks, providing winterization and relief supplies to an additional 1,500 children in vulnerable communities.
Coalition of Partners This operation required a complex supply chain spanning from New York to Kyiv. We are grateful to our operational partners—Children of Heroes, The World Orphan Fund, Fashion 4 Ukraine, Veselka NYC, and The World of Giving—for turning logistics into joy.
