Youth group feed the hungry in memory of Ukrainian famine

St. Basil's young people made sandwiches for 150 St. Jerome pupils

- Photo by Denise Lucyshyn Victoria Bobey, left, and Iara Santelices make ham and cheese buns for the pupils.

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Edmonton

Their faces lit up at the sight of the ham and cheese sandwiches and hot turkey soup being served to them. Some rushed to the line as if afraid to miss out. Then, with delight in their eyes, the students sat in their own desks to savour the delicious meal.

It was a case of children helping children as members of the youth group of St. Basil's Ukrainian Catholic Parish prepared a hot lunch for the students at St. Jerome Elementary School, 3310-107 Ave., Nov. 23 to mark the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian Famine.

Almost 150 students received sandwiches and soup prepared the previous evening by the St. Basil's youth group, whose members range in age from six to 18.

Members of the parish's Knights of Columbus and their wives served the lunch to the students in their classroom as Basilian Father Ireneus Prystajecky explained the causes of the famine to the children.

Famine's history

The famine occurred when Soviet ruler Josef Stalin enforced a policy of land management in Ukraine called collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmlands and livestock in a country where 80 per cent of the people were traditional village farmers.

By mid-1932, nearly 75 per cent of the farms in the Ukraine had been forcibly collectivized. On Stalin's orders, mandatory quotas of foodstuffs to be shipped out to the Soviet Union were drastically increased in August, October and again in January 1933, until there was simply no food remaining to feed the people of Ukraine.

Almost seven million people are believed to have died of starvation.

- WCR photo by Ramon Gonzalez Knights of Columbus member Steve Chichak ladles out homemade soup to hungry St. Jerome Grade 2 students.

St. Jerome principal Marilyn Landerville was happy the young people at St. Basil were able to connect the famine with the reality of her school.

"We have many students at our school who have suffered from not having enough to eat - not to the extent the people in the Ukraine did - but here there are many students that do not have the nourishment that they need each day," she said.

"It is various reasons. The families have come from another country and have to find a job. What they have at home isn't the same as anybody else has at home. It's difficult for them to get enough for everyone in their family."

According to Landerville, half of the school population of 149 students may have difficulty getting enough food on a regular basis.

Prystajecky, one of the priests at St. Basil, went from classroom to classroom explaining the famine in a language children could understand.

"It makes me feel sad that a government could starve their own people," said Grade 5 student Marc Sellers. "But I'll remember this day, Nov. 23, as a day when we mark the starvation death of millions of people in Ukraine."

A story to tell

Sellers, 10, vowed to share his newly acquired knowledge of the Ukrainian Famine with his parents and friends.

The hot lunch at St. Jerome was one of dozens of similar activities taking place across the province to mark the 75th anniversary of the famine.

In September, Bishop David Motiuk of the Edmonton Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy called on the faithful of the eparchy to mark the anniversary by feeding the poor of today.

The 37-member youth group of St. Basil's decided to focus on St. Jerome because they have been working with the school for two years and know many students do not have enough food in their homes, explained youth director Daryl Chichak.

An act of grace

The youth group raised $300 through a weekend bazaar - funds to make 150 sandwiches of ham, cheese and pickles in a kaiser bun.

Knights' member Larry Dominiuk, a former cooking instructor at NAIT, made the soup.

"We just wanted to show that kids can help other kids out too all through the remembrance of this 75th anniversary of the famine in Ukraine," Chichak said. "What a beautiful act of social justice to help other children," added principal Landerville.

"They could have stayed home watching the hockey game but they chose to come here to make the sandwiches. Even more remarkable is that they decided that the money they raised was going to be spent helping other children."

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