photo: flickr.com

Around Christmas time, Poles show their generosity supporting charity campaigns with their money, time and initiative...

Krysia Kołosowska reports

Poles are irregular charitable donors. According to a recent research, they prefer on-the-spot donations in the street to long-term commitments. They need to make sure their money is going to support a right cause, the most popular being children or poor people, humanitarian and religious organizations. One third of Poles made some sort of donation this year, over half of them spend at least 50 złoty, which is just over 15 U.S. dollars.

These are the statistics. In practice, Poles organize and participate in scores of grassroots charitable campaign, especially before Christmas. These are not necessarily researched, as many involve work and material goods, not money. Here are just a few examples to give you an idea of the scale and character of the campaigns.

One of the major campaigns which has become a Christmas tradition in many homes nationwide is the Christmas candle sale by Poland's largest charity, the Catholic Caritas Polska. The organization distributes candles in Poland, and recently also among the Polish communities abroad, successfully raising money for the needy of the world.

'Last year we managed to collect as much as 90 million Polish zloty, which is a considerable amount of money. It is earmarked for organizing holidays for children, daily nuitrition of children at Caritas center and also at schools. We feed as many as one hundred fifty thousand children every day at schools and Caritas centers. The fund also goes to rehabilitation of children and ten groszy out of each candle sold is earmarked for support of children in Africa. This year the priority country is Cameroon,' says Katarzyna Sekuła of Caritas Polska.

Next to giant campaigns like this one, various specialized grassroots initiatives spring up in Poland every Christmas.

For over 10 years now every Christmas Polish scouts collect basic products, including food and toiletries, and then travel with the transport to the Polish minorities who are in a difficult financial and political situation in Belarus.

'We just go from home to home. We have a list of people living there in Polish minorities. Belarus is not the wealthiest country in the world, so the whole population, not only the Polish minority, have problems with poverty. Little gifts are valuable. But I would say they gifts aren't everything. I think that the whole idea of Polish people bringing them gifts is much more valuable for them. We could say we give them hope, we give them a sense of belonging, that they are still a part of our community, that we care about them, and that we did not forget about them. People really cry when they talk to us, they really are very flattered and I think it's the biggest advantage of it, that they feel like they are not alone,' says Andrzej Lipson of the Scout Association of the Republic of Poland.

Another spontaneous charity campaign is organized by journalists of Polish Radio Lublin. Organizers collect food, toys, clothes and other products to help children survive the winter. This campaign is famous for its main rule: no money is involved. This, however, does not prevent the organizers from running an auction where they sell stuff in exchange for food. For example, disabled children donated drawings which were sold for 50 packages of raisins, cocoa, tea and chocolates.

Warsaw-based St. Nicholas foundation came up with a different idea. Since many poor children get receive clothes, toys and sweets from various charity campaigns, they thought of a charitable niche still to be filled. They are collecting money for education of children raised in family orphanages.

'We don't buy them teddy bears, we don't buy them clothes, we buy them education, because we want to give these children something more than just a momentary joy of Christmas - educational trips, language courses, but also additional coaching in math or science. We also support parents, organizing psychological training for them with therapists. We buy musical instruments for talented kids,' said Michał Rżysko, campaign coordinator said. In this year's campaign the foundation managed to raise nearly 632 thousand zloty (over 215 thousand US dollars).

Meanwhile in Czarnków, near Poznań in western Poland, the Little Match Girls dressed in clothes from the famous fable are out on the streets, singing carols around a bonfire, drinking hot tea with lemons and selling matches for a symbolic sum of 1 zloty (30 US cents). This year the money goes to poor children in Zambia.

'Before we sit around the Christmas Eve table, we sometimes feel like we still want to do something good. There is a thousand of those charity campaigns in Poland. They are all beautiful. Ours is one thousand first and it's just as lovely as the others,' says initiator of the campaign, Jan Pertek.

The list of Polish charity campaigns could go on for long... proving that even in the times of crisis, Poles do keep their hearts open at this most beautiful time of year.

Click on the audio icon to listen to the report by Krysia Kołosowska.