An Orphan Smiles wants to make the Christmas Holidays a special time for all the children that we assist. In Ukraine, there are two special "Holiday" celebrations. The first celebration is called St. Nicholas' Day which is on December 19th. St. Nicholas Day, not Christmas, is the usual gift-giving day in Ukraine. On the eve of this night, we hope the caretakers will be able to hide a gift for each of the children in their rooms, and when the children awake, they can look for their "gift". The second celebration is on New Year's Day when Father Frost (Ded Moroz) comes with the big red bag and hands out gifts similiar to Santa (December 31/January 1). During the years of Soviet domination, Father Frost was introduced to Ukraine as a non-Christian replacement for St. Nicholas. Ukrainians enjoy a secular Christmas on December 25 and their Church celebration on January 7.

An Orphan Smiles is collecting donations for our Christmas Smiles Fund forTsurupinsk Children's Home and Mykolaivka Internat along with the Graduate Support Center.

Our annual hope is to provide enough funding to provide a special Holiday dinner and celebration at each orphanage. Additionally, if funding allows we would like to provide a special gift to each child. Because of the planning involved and the time it takes to ship donations, the An Orphan Smiles Christmas project is essentially a year round collection and donation effort. We actively accept donations all year long to provide for Christmas. 

Christmas Smiles Donation using Paypal:

OR Check Donation:

Mail your check to: (Use Memo line to indicate Donation type)

An Orphan Smiles, Inc.
PO Box 175
Kimberton, PA 19442-0175
USA

2016  Christmas Smiles "What's in the Works"

It's that time of year again and we are busy, busy, busy getting gifts together for the children at Mykolaivka Internat, Tsurupinsk Children's Home and for the Graduate Students in our GAP vocational program.

AOS has received a request from Myko to provide hand towels for all the children, along with some toys and candy treats.   We are in the process of purchasing hand towels and will assemble those for each child with some candy.  We will organize and color coordiante by class and include some larger games and puzzle that each class can enjoy.

Our in-country rep Vadym, who helps us tirelessly with Tsurupinsk, is coming up with another wonderful gift idea for the 54 children at Tsurupinsk.  Not sure how he will out do the photo mugs of last year (see below), but the kids will be in for a surprise for sure.  AOS has budgeted approximately $5 - $6 per child for this in-country effort.

For the GAP students, An Orphan Smiles is sending warm socks, hot chocolate, and Crest toothpaste.  These are all REQUESTED items from the kids themselves.

Every year we rely on the generous support of our donors.   Please help us today by making a DONATION to our Christmas progam.

2015 Christmas Smiles 

The staff of Mykolaivka Internat had asked An Orphan Smiles for some simple Christmas gifts for the children this year. AOS collected funding for and in-kind donations of socks, toys (i.e. cars and Barbie dolls), winter scarves (handmade) and gloves, and candy treats.  Each child received a special bag (typical contents shown below - girl and boy)  and the orphanange as whole received several large boxes of toys that they could distribute to the children.

Each child at Tsurupinsk Children's Home received a photo mug with his or her picture.  The children were very excited to receive such a personalized gift that they would not have to share.

2014  Christmas Smiles 

With the uncertainty of shipping to Ukraine because of unrest in the eastern part of the country, An Orphan Smiles could not plan our usual Christmas support for the children.  We were able to assemble Christmas Treat bags for all the children last minute and they did arrive safely for a New Year's Celebration!

2013  Christmas Smiles 

An Orphan Smiles was asked by the staff of Mykolaivka to provide duffle bags for all the children.  They didn't have anything to put clothes or possesions in if the should leave the orphanage for a visit to a relative, to go to camp or a special outing provided by AOS.

2012  Christmas Smiles 

An Orphan Smiles has many helpers for our annual Christmas program!  Our summer Focus Week is "Christmas in July" where many supporters donated funds for helping with the shipping cost for all our Christmas Projects.

Christmas Stockings were given to the kids on St. Nicholas Day on Dec 19.  A HUGE Thank you to Vicki and her extended family for shopping the clearance sales, assembling, and shipping these wonderful treats.  

A special request came through from the staff at Mykolaivka Internat for a Bath towel for each child.  An Orphan Smiles sent 120 Bath towels (color coordinated by class) as Christmas presents along with candy treats.   Thank you sponsors whose annual dues helped with this purchase.   Also money was sent for a New Year's celebration for all the kids to enjoy!   Additionally, approximately 85% of the children at Mykolaivka are sponsored and individual gifts often are sent by the sponsors along with general donations for the unsponsored students.

FIVE GIANT boxes were sent containing gifts for each of the kids at Orphanage 12 and each of the students in the O12 GAP program. Each gift included a backpack, toiletry bag, bar soap, shampoo, lotion, washcloth, candy, snacks, small toys and a larger gift (i.e. k'nex toy, transformers, watch, card game). In addition each child received a variety of other items such as toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, handmade snowman or Chapstick.  Also included in the boxes were general donation items like underwear, T-shirts, sanitary pads, band-aids, books, hair accessories and night gowns.   THANKS to Kennita and her family along with a local Indiana Lutheran Church confirmation class and a Girl Scout group. Everyone was excited to help. 

Tsurupinsk Children's Home was sent eight boxes with candy and gifts (many art supplies and crafts) for 80+ kids. Included were handmade birthday cards for 78 kids designed by the children at the American International School in Israel.   Thank you to sixteen year old Travis for coordinating this project with help from him mom Lynn and younger sister Sasha.  An Orphan Smiles also is sending Tsurupinsk a projector as a Group Christmas present for all the children to enjoy.

2011 Christmas Smiles "On Their Way"

An Orphan Smiles has two project planned for the 119 kids presently at Mykolaivka Internat.   First is Christmas Stockings that will be given to the kids on St. Nicholas Day on Dec 19.  A HUGE Thank you to Vicki and her extended family for shopping the clearance sales, assembling, and shipping these wonderful treats.    

The second project is our Photo Album project for the New Year's Celebration Gift.   Each Myko kid will receive a personalized photo album containing several photos of themselves.    There are many empty pages that we can continue to send them photos and sponsors can send photos and they will have a special place to keep these photos.   Each photo album was placed in a ziplock bag with a pair of socks, a pair of undewear, a pen and pencil, fruit snacks, winter hats for the girls, and some of the boys got gloves, some got little footballs, and everyone got a Candy Cane.

HUGE THANK YOU to Kelly and her team of scrapbook artists for making ALL the albums!!!!   Those that helped Kelly included Grace, Tara, Dan, Maggie and the "Scarlet Sweethearts" Red Hat Club!!!   HUGE undertaking to design over 100 albums!    Each album had the child's name in both English and Russian.  No two albums were alike and both the  front and back were done.  Really Amazing!!

2010 Christmas Smiles "Delivered"

Mykolaivka Internat

Vicki and her sister have created goodie "stockings" for the children to be "hidden" on Saint Nicholas' Day on December 19th.
150 stockings have been sent to Mykolaivka Internat. Thank you Vicki and Family.

For Father Frost's visit on New Year's Eve, many volunteers have created Holiday Gift Bags, personalized for each of the children based on age and gender. The Gift Bag contains toothpaste, a toothbrush, a washcloth, a pair of socks, several bags of edible treats and a toy or article of clothing. (i.e. puzzle, lego set, doll, makeup set/nail polish set for older girls, t-shirt/baseball hat/flashlight set for older boys).
These New Year's Eve bags were received at Mykolaivka Internat and distributed during the New Year's Celebration.

Thanks to a collective effort of all the KIDS sponsors at Mykolaivka Internat, $500 was also  sent in December for a Holiday Meal and Celebration.

Kiev Orphanage 12

At Orphanage 12, An Orphans Smiles also provided individual and personalized "goodie" bags for the 34 boys and girls at O12. These special bags include items like toothpaste, toothbrushes, socks, granola bars, popcorn, candy, and hot chocolate.

Tsurupinsk Children's Home

Tsurupinsk is a larger orphanage with 118 physically and mentally challenged children.  An Orphan Smiles accumulated two large boxes of gifts (dolls, coloring books, crayons, cars, paint set, etc) which were sent to the Tsurupinsk Children's Home in time for Christmas.   In addition to this the Paterson family sent gift bags as part of the "Blankets for Brian" project.   The boxes sent averaged approximately 30lbs each and were filled with individual bags containing a toothbrush, comb, crayons, gloves, scarf, candy, a stuffed animal and a blanket.  "Blankets for Brian" is in memory of their son. His friends and family gathered and assembled 23 boxes total to be shipped to Ukraine.

Graduate Support Center

An Orphan Smiles also is thinking of our struggling orphans during the Holidays who have graduated from the orphanage system and may be alone for the Holidays. The GAP sponsors have sent individual gifts to many of the students and An Orphan Smiles has arranged for a small monetary Christmas gift for unsponsored GAP students.

Please consider a donation to our Christmas Smiles Fund. Sadly, many of these children have never received a gift in their lifetime.