Group will pass out quilts, socks and shirts to needy children

By WENDY GEIST
Gazette-Times reporter

Eleven volunteers are heading to Uzhgorod, Ukraine, this afternoon as part of the TOUCH project. This is the fourth year in a row that delegates from the group have traveled half way around the world to offer humanitarian aid to children in Corvallis' sister city.

The group will spend a little more than two weeks handing out 32 locally made quilts, 2,000 pairs of donated new socks, and 300 T-shirts to more than 320 children in the city's orphanage, rehabilitation center and "New Family" program.

TOUCH, which stands for Take One Ukrainian Child's Hand, was created in 2001 by local co-chairwomen Alice Rampton and Sabra Killen. Money donated by sponsors has been used to improve facilities, build playground structures and provide clothing for the children.

On this year's trip, the volunteers plan to take the children shopping at outdoor markets for underwear, jackets, shirts and shoes; distribute a shipment of previously sent books and supplies; help the children paint a mural at the rehabilitation center; and attend a concert put on by children in the New Family program. Photos of each child are also taken and brought back to be distributed to the more than 320 sponsors who have donated money.

Socks were donated by local merchants. Quilts were provided by Peg Davis, of Corvallis, local quilt groups and a group of women in Scio.

The younger boys and girls will get to pick out which quilt to put on their bed, said Killen, president of the Corvallis Sister Cities Association.

"It might be the only thing they own," she said.

The group will also finish work on a laundry facility that TOUCH built so that the children at the orphanage would be able to wash their own clothes. The group will also place a grave marker at the burial site of a 10-year-old orphan boy who died by electrocution this year after entering a room full of wires. Nobody had any idea how he got in, Killen explained.

Most sponsors are from Corvallis, said Killen. But there are also sponsors from eight to 10 states across the United States. Sponsors donate $60 per child per year, or $5 per month. Local groups such as Girl Scouts, 4-H, and classes at Crescent Valley High School also sponsor children.

The delegates making the trip this year range in age from 17 to 80 and are from Corvallis, Utah and Idaho. The delegates pay their own travel expenses.

Killen said she sometimes contributes 40 hours a week to this cause because of a personal desire to go out in the world and help people.

"So much goes on in the world today. It's a small way to fix something and contribute to children in need," she said.

Rampton, partner on the project, said that the orphanage gets adequate funding from the regional government.

"It helps but doesn't cover everything," Rampton said.

TOUCH also works with children who live with retired relatives. Rampton said their pensions average $53 a month, which is very little to live on, let alone support a child.

"When I visited Uzhgorod in 1993," explained Rampton, "I asked to visit the orphanage and no one knew where it was. We feel good that the people of the city are now more connected to the orphanage. The local rotary is working to buy a tractor and the Zonta club takes children on trips."

Both Rampton and Killen have seen the economy improving in Ukraine.

"Every year, there are more and more cars, more and more stores being built," Killen said.

Another aspect of the project that TOUCH is working on is to teach older children who have left the orphanage how to live on their own and interest them in attending vocational schools.

Killen said orphans are typically thought of as problem children in Uzhgorod.

"They aren't given any direction once they leave the orphanage," she said. "It's about educating people in Uzhgorod that all the kids really can learn and grow."

In the coming year, TOUCH hopes to raise enough money to bring some of the teachers and directors of the orphanage to visit similar facilities in the United States.

"Children of the orphanage have been labeled disabled and not given much hope for the future," Rampton said. "We feel that with a better education some of their talents might be better recognized."

ON THE NET: www.sister

cities.corvallis.or.us/touch/

Touch2004a.html.

Gazette-Times reporter Wendy Geist can be reached at wendy.geist@lee.net or 758-9521.