You Can Help CoSS!

Thank you for visiting our web page and for your interest in helping us help the children of Sosnovaya Street. We appreciate your taking the time to check us out.  Please click on the following choices for descriptions of current CoSS projects and ways you can help.

Come to the board

Money money money

Make your ePurchases Through our Partners

Wear us with pride

Sweet dreams

Bundles of love

Providing safe haven

The shirt off your back

Join us for dinner

Health and hygiene

Access to education

Someone we can count on

Making it go

Setting them free

Tell a friend

Home

Come to the board

Able bodies, agile minds, dedicated hearts - we love all of you! Join our Board of Directors, Advisory Council or ongoing committees. We need your fundraising skills, your public relations expertise, your event planning and organization abilities. We need Russian/English translators in the US and in Russia. We need to know who you know in companies and agencies who can help us in our mission. We need mentors for the older children as they develop their professional skills. We need your prayers.  Join us!

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Money money money

Of course, the most immediate and in some ways easiest way you can help is by donating money.  Print off the coupon on our brochure page or inquire about electronic transfer. Of course, the easiest means to donate is to make a credit card donation through The Network for Good.  These donations are deposited directly into our account with no overhead costs to us.  Just click on the button here or in the menu frame to your left.  If one of our projects listed below interests you, you may earmark your donation for that project.  Otherwise, your contribution will go into the general fund.  Our pledge to you is that 100% of your tax deductible contribution will be spent on fulfilling the children's needs.

Fundraising events are always a possibility. If you or a group you belong to would like to hold a fundraising dinner, we are happy to provide a CoSS board member or two to attend and share experiences, outline dreams and make friends.  Contact us for further information.

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Make your ePurchases Through our Partners

Need books, music, electronics, travel, gardening supplies, even art?  Whenever you make on-line purchases, please link to them through the CoSS website.  In this way a portion of your purchases will be credited to CoSS for its work.  Look under the Partners menu item for a list of all the eCommerce partners.  As a shortcut, you can always just access Amazon.com directly from the button in the menu frame to your left and a little of each of your purchases will come to us.  Just put CoSS in your favorites list so that it's easy to open us up on your way to Amazon.  Just one extra click on your part can help a lot - at no extra cost to you!

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Wear us with pride

Show off your generosity and look good at the same time.  Buy and wear one of our CoSS shirts.  Help us get the word out every time you wear it as well as provide us funds for helping the kids of the detsky dom.  The beautiful rose design, done by one of the kids at the detsky dom, is simple and elegant.  Contact us for ordering info.  We may soon add note cards and/or mugs.  Let us know if you would be interested one of these items.

T-shirt has a larger image on the back and small version is over the left breast.  A polo shirt has the small version over the left breast pocket.

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Sweet dreams

One of the first projects CoSS is developing is providing 125 clean, safe beds for the children at Svirstroiski Detsky Dom.  We have designed a sturdy and attractive bed made of 2 x 6 boards bolted together with a shallow `secret compartment` under the mattress where the children can keep small keepsakes and photos.  Each bed frame will cost us about $50 to make. In addition, we will buy new mattresses and mattress covers from IKEA in Moscow.  The mattresses will cost about $75 apiece and the mattress covers will be $15 each. Something as simple as a fresh, clean bed with a secret compartment can go a long way toward helping an abandoned child feel valued and secure.

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Bundles of love

About twenty to twenty five of the older children in any given year are attending vocational training schools in towns away from Svir Stroi.  CoSS has an ongoing project of sending those young people warm clothing, toiletries, nutritious food items and school supplies on a regular basis.  Maybe you belong to a church group or other organization that would enjoy helping us gather and ship supplies to these students. If you would like to help with this project, please contact us for information.  you can contribute money for postage or shipping costs for this project, please do. One four pound package of supplies costs about $20 to package and ship.  A complete mailing to all the young people costs about $250.

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Providing safe haven

The detsky dom, although well constructed and sturdy, is in need of repair in many places. Most urgent are windows and doors.  So many are broken or worn out that the cold winter winds blow freely through the building.  The facilities repair staff there are skilled and extraordinarily dedicated given that they don't receive regular salaries.  All they need is materials - glass, putty, doors, hardware, framing materials, etc.  The lumber yard in the nearest town will sell supplies to the detsky dom at a good rate.  From time to time, young men from the detsky dom are hired there as interns.  Spending our money there helps the children by helping the local economy.

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The shirt off your back

The brave, resourceful woman who does the laundry for these 125 children needs new equipment.  Industrial size washers (2), extractors (2) and dryers (2) along with detergents and a new table for folding the clothes would be an immense help.  Having good equipment will make it possible for her to provide the children with a steady supply of clean clothes.  It's a lot easier for a child to feel valued in clean clothes.

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Join us for dinner

The cook, who somehow manages to put three meals a day in front of these children, needs just about everything.  Refrigerator, pots, pans, service ware, food, condiments, cleaning compounds, towels, wash cloths, mops, brooms, hand cream.  The children eat their meals in family groups.  These groups need every kind of unbreakable dishes, cutlery, glasses and service ware and cleaning materials for their dining areas.  Well prepared, nutritious food served pleasantly is important for a child's development.

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Health and hygiene

Despite the best efforts of the detsky dom director and her staff, the children are malnourished and their general health is deteriorating.  Medical care is limited to the skills of two nurses, a massage therapist on site and the poorly equipped and only occasionally staffed hospital and polyclinic in the nearest town.  Some of the children need care for major problems like skin cancer, heart problems and bone malformation.  Three of the children need surgery for wandering eye.  The children have had no access to dental care for a long time and their teeth show it.  Every facial expression is edited by cavities, missing teeth and discoloration.  Many days and nights are punctuated with bouts of tooth and jaw pain.  Abandonment issues, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Fetal Alcohol Affects,
depression and other mental health issues prevent most of the children from having normal interpersonal relations.  CoSS is committed to providing consistent health care for our kids.

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Access to education

CoSS is committed to identifying and providing appropriate education or vocational training for the young people before they leave the detsky dom.  Several of the students should be sent to university.  The public high school in Svir Stroi, although it has high standards, is unable to provide classes needed to qualify for admission to some university departments.  Tutorial services are available for a fee of about $2000 that will bring the students up to speed in needed coursework.  A university student needs at least $200 per month to live on.

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Someone we can count on

In order to carry these projects forward, CoSS needs to hire someone in country who will travel to the different schools where the young people are studying to report on their progress and their needs.  This person also will research materiel costs, resource availability and detsky dom needs for us.  In order to hire this person, we need at least $600 per month in electronic transfers to our bank account.

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Making it go

In order to keep in contact with the children, maintain partnerships with detsky dom staff, develop relationships with service providers and oversee our projects and to identify new ones, CoSS' Executive Director needs to travel to Russia twice a year for two weeks.  Each trip will cost $3000.  Donated frequent flyer mileage will help defray that expense.

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Setting them free

In Russia, young people are turned out of detsky doms at about age 17 whether they are equipped to survive in the outside world or not.   CoSS is committed to helping them gain the skills needed to survive on their own.  In cooperation with other successful programs in other cities, CoSS will establish a residential center in St. Petersburg where the young detsky dom graduates can live while they learn to cook, clean, budget, apply for work and go to work.  To do that, we need a large house in a good neighborhood with access to public transportation, trained staff, computers, household furniture and goods, food and medicines.

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Tell a friend
Help us get the word out.  Print out the brochure and pass along to friends and co-workers.  Email our url to those you know.  Use your imagination.  A little help from a lot of people is all we need.

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