4-Hers Devote Hands to Large Service, Prepare Gifts for Orphans

Herzog, Karen. "4-Hers Devote Hands to Large Service, Prepare Gifts for Orphans." Bismarck Tribune, 31 May 1998, sec. 4E.

One of the promises 4-H members make is to devote their hands to larger service.

Members of the Dynamite Kids 4-H Club of Burleigh County decided to do just that by donating and assembling gift packets for children in an orphanage in Ukraine.

The gifts will ride with members of a "Journey to the Homeland" tour May 26 to June 12. The tours, sponsored through the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection at the North Dakota State University Libraries, bring descendants of the pioneer ethnic Germans back to the villages of their ancestors in the Black Sea area of southern Russia.

Tour members, include June Kraft of Burleigh County Extension Service, will take "that extra suitcase" on the tour, filled with gift items for the orphanage children, she said. The 4-H members are also sending letters, translated to Russian, to the children, as well as a check from funds they raised.

The packets contain personal hygiene items, Kraft said, such as combs, socks, tooth brushes, hair ties, etc. The children in the Lighthouse Orphanage in Ukraine are in the same age range, 10-12, as the 4-H kids donating the packets.

Past tours of the Germans from Russia in the Odessa area have made some reliable connections with groups serving children in need, Kraft said.

Kraft is a member of the upcoming tour and will be able to personally deliver those items to the children there, she said.

In looking at numbers from the 1980 census, Kraft said, she spotted a statistic stating that 62 percent of those in Burleigh County were of German ancestry. Those numbers include some 4-H members, also, she said.

Leaders of the Dynamite Kids Club are Irene Jaton, Louise Gobbs, Juanita Braun and Lynn Moser.

Reprinted with permission of The Bismarck Tribune.