Usually, with our help, the Orthodox parish in Kondopoga, Karelia provides lunch and a range of activities to deprived local children – all based at their welcoming hub at Parish House. This year, group activities weren’t possible, but with unemployment rising the parish knew that the need was greater than ever.
Since 1991 St Gregory’s Foundation has worked with the exceptionally active parish in Kondopoga to serve their poor community. During that time Russia and Kondopoga have changed greatly, but the parish continues to meet the challenges in its path. Tamara Dragadze, one of our directors, reflects on what supporting Kondopoga has meant to her personally.
Many years ago, St Gregory’s Foundation provided funding for the parish in Kondopoga to have on its land a small sawmill and a woodwork workshop (which made furniture and used the saw wood profitably too) and all that went with it. Unfortunately in time these stopped being commercially viable and they closed. We at St Gregory’s accepted that things like that happened…
However, many years later a devoted member of their parish appeared from nowhere and decided to revive it as a centre for teaching woodwork to Continue reading Nothing is lost in Kondopoga parish
Every summer we help Kondopoga parish to feed 30 of the town’s most deprived children during the summer holidays. Every day they came to parish house for a hot lunch followed by games. Some of the children come because their family is simply too poor to feed them, like the family with four boys under six whose father is too ill to work. Continue reading Two brothers find a new family thanks to Kondopoga parish
