“Give a bit of yourself to help your fellow human…”

A charity ball was held at Lviv’s House of Scientists on November 11. Its objective was to raise funds for the purchase of kitchen equipment for the city’s Feeding Center for the Needy and Homeless. (About 1,000 homeless people are registered with the center, and 200 of them have already obtained a passport, while 569 have a temporary ID.) The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Lviv City Council were the event’s organizers. It should be said that this church has long been successfully cooperating with the municipality in the social care field. For example, a rooming house for the homeless was opened due to a joint effort several years ago. Gene­rally speaking, the Greek Catholics think creatively when seeking funds for their projects. The traditional ball at the Ukrainian Catholic University comes to mind here, as well as the opera and rock tours “With Faith and Love” that were organized to collect the money needed for the completion of the Patriarchal Cathedral in Kyiv.

The latest charity ball’s program included famous designer Olha Romanova’s fashion show, performance by violinist and the silver medalist of the Ukraine Has Got Talent-2 show Oleksandr Bozhyk and his quartet, as well as such familiar entertainments as the reception, dances, and auction. Among the auction’s lots, there were paintings by the leading local artists, an evening dress from the abovementioned Romanova’s collection, a romantic dinner for two persons at a respectable restaurant in the city, three-volume sets of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky’s collected works, George Weigel’s acclaimed bio­graphy of Pope John Paul II, a CD with recordings by singer Jamala with her autograph. Apropos, the organizers have chosen Lina Kostenko’s words “Give a bit of yourself to help your fellow human, and your soul will be filled with light” as the soiree’s motto.

“Our main objective is much broader than just raising money,” says Father Roman Lahish. “We seek to revive the culture of philanthropy. When this land was a part of Austria-Hungary, the autumn balls were held simultaneously in Vienna and Lviv. There were a lot of them. They targeted different social strata and had various agendas, large-scale as well as low-profile ones. So, all kinds of people were involved in charitable affairs. Thus, the well-off cared about those who lived in modest circumstances or even in poverty. Historians maintain that such practices and attitudes were the reason why the empire managed to avoid a revolution in its age, unlike some other European countries of the time.”