Kateryna Gedz, director of the “Kapitoshka” preschool provider, reached out to Oleg Skrypka’s “Kraina Mriy” Foundation. She wrote the following:

Dear “Kraina Mriy” Fooundation,

We are reaching out to you with a sincere request for support for the Kolonshchyna Preschool (nursery-kindergarten) “Kapitoshka” of the Makariv Village Council.

Our facility is extremely important to the community, as it serves the children of the Kolonshchyna village council district, which consists of four villages (Kolonshchyna, Berezivka, Maryanivka, Mykolaivka) with a population of approximately 8,000. For many families, our kindergarten is the only center of development, care, and childhood for their children within easy reach. Our facility is a modern, warm, comfortable, and cozy educational space. The kindergarten building is a two-story structure built in 2008. The facility has four groups, with a capacity of 95 spots for children aged 1 to 6–7 years. It has the necessary facilities and resources to ensure high-quality care, development, and education for the children.

Due to wartime conditions and to protect the lives and health of children, families from other regions—including Kyiv and other areas—are relocating to our community. This is why ensuring the facility’s safe operation is critically important. We would also like to note that in 2022, our community suffered damage as a result of hostilities by the Russian Federation. Military operations took place in the immediate vicinity of the facility, and the kindergarten building sustained damage from a blast wave. Fortunately, the damage was not critical—it has been repaired, and the facility is now fully operational. After these events, the need for the facility’s operation has become even more urgent: parents need to work, and children need to receive quality preschool education and be in a safe environment. Unfortunately, our facility did not have its own shelter for a long time and has been operating remotely since 2022. But thanks to the support of the “Gurtum” Charitable Foundation and the “Krayany” Association of Ukrainians in Japan, our dream has begun to come true; we managed to convert a vegetable storage room into a shelter. However, it currently requires further work—creating a safe, convenient, and comfortable space for the children to stay during air raid alerts. After all, the lives and health of our children are paramount; they are our most precious treasure—they are our future.

That is why we are reaching out to you with a request to join us in realizing this extremely important project. Your support will help create safe conditions for our students and staff and ensure the continuity of the educational process. We sincerely invite you to visit our facility to see the conditions for yourself and experience our space—warm, modern, well-maintained, and created with love for the children. We would be delighted to welcome you and openly demonstrate just how important this project is to us. We sincerely hope for your support and the opportunity to collaborate.