Help open a second Home of Hope for girls in Ukraine

Will you help give these girls a home—and a reason to dream again?

Do you remember being 16? Maybe you were dreaming big, testing boundaries, or imagining your future. For many of our teenaged sisters in Ukraine today, the dream is simply this: to survive. To feel safe.

Thanks to you, some of them already do.

Because of your compassion and generosity, dozens of vulnerable girls have found safety, love, and hope at the Home of Hope, the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate ministry in Lviv. For the past 10 years, the Sisters have welcomed girls who’ve experienced war, poverty, violence, or abandonment—and helped them heal and thrive. You made that possible.

But the need is greater than ever.

Since the war escalated, more than 100,000 people—many of them young women and girls—have fled from places like Donetsk and Kharkiv to the city of Chernivtsi, seeking refuge. Imagine that: a city the size of Saskatoon (Chernivtsi’s sister city, in fact), suddenly flooded with families, seniors, and traumatized youth. Local resources are overwhelmed.

That’s why, in 2020, the Bishop of Chernivtsi asked the Sisters for help. They responded immediately.

Today, two Sisters are serving in Chernivtsi, providing pastoral and social services for poor and disadvantaged families, lonely and impoverished elderly people, wounded soldiers, and socially vulnerable girls. And now, they’re asking us—asking you—to help them take the next step.

They want to open a second Home of Hope.

This new home in Chernivtsi will welcome nine girls (ages 15–23) and three Sisters. It will provide more than shelter. It will be a place of love, healing, friendship, faith, and growth—a place where girls can imagine a future again.

The model will be slightly different: five spots will be subsidized for girls from the most at-risk situations—those “graduating” from orphanages, for example—and four will be supported by modest room and board fees. But all the girls will receive the care, love and guidance they need to flourish.

So far, generous donors in Canada and abroad have helped raise 75% of the funds needed to open the new Home. Meanwhile, the original Home of Hope in Lviv still relies on your gifts to keep the lights on—literally and figuratively.

Now we turn to you once more.

Together, in this annual campaign of the Ukrainian Catholic Women’s League of Canada and Lubov SSMI Foundation, we’re working to raise $40,000 to support both Homes: to sustain the life-changing work in Lviv, and to bring the same love and stability to girls in Chernivtsi.

As Sister Krystofora, Provincial of SSMI Ukraine, shares:

“Our co-foundress, Blessed Josaphata Hordashevska, calls us to serve where the need is greatest. What we have seen in Chernivtsi is a desperate need to provide love and stability for girls whose worlds have been ravaged.”

Your gift—$250, $100, $50, or whatever you can give—will support 23 girls in Lviv today, and open the doors for nine more girls in Chernivtsi tomorrow.

We invite you to join our sisters and brothers in Christ across Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine, and the United States, to answer the Sisters’ call. Will you help give these girls a home—and a reason to dream again?

Catechism with teens in Chernivsti

A visit from Bishop Nowakiwski

Since the war escalated, more than 100,000 people — many of them young women and girls — have fled to Chernivtsi, seeing refuge.

SISTER VERONIKA KHYTRA, SSMI,
DIRECTOR OF HOME OF HOPE

"You make lives of these girls normal."

It takes just $100 a day to support all the girls and Sisters in Lviv with warmth, food, care, and joy. Just $10 covers a hearty home-cooked meal. $300—or $25/month—means a full month of dinners. Will you please help?

Your gift goes further than you think!

Thank you for your love!