We know that libraries can create and support feelings of community, but now their patrons can support faraway communities.
Participating Pikes Peak Library District facilities, including the Manitou Springs library, are hosting stations where mothers and children can write letters of hope and support to Ukrainian mothers and children living in Polish camps for refugees.
Three caring people, Steve Popovich, Keith Davis and Vince Murphy, implemented the program in partnership with relief organizations. Popovich reached out to Melody Alvarez, the PPLD’s director of Family & Children’s Services, to discuss the idea.
The project took many months to start as the three men worked with relief organizations to find carriers that would transport the letters to refugee camps in Poland.
In May, PPLD received the good news that two carriers would transport letters.
The Frontier Horizon non-governmental organization will deliver 1,000 letters to displaced Ukrainian orphans, age 6 to 17, who are temporarily sheltered outside of Warsaw, and possibly in Germany. Letters of Hope NGO has committed to taking batches of letters to refugees outside of Ukraine and those at the processing stations in Poland.
The Rotary Club of Colorado Springs picks up the letters twice a month from PPLD.
The Rotarians read through the letters to ensure they are supportive and include no personal information. Two organizations, Ukrainians of Colorado and Ukrainian National Women’s League of America Inc., help translate and check the letters.
Pikes Peak Library District started the writing campaign in June during its Summer Adventure reading program and it will end Aug. 31. As of late July, PPLD had collected 339 letters.
PPLD was the first library district to join the partnership as a pilot. The program now includes Security Public Library, Pueblo City-County Library and Aurora Central Library.
Gov. Jared Polis has endorsed the program, as has the United Nations Refugee Agency.