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U.S. STEAM FANS AIDING UKRAINIAN REFUGEES. WILL YOU HELP?
The war in Ukraine is a horrendous, human tragedy. More than 2 million women and children have fled Ukraine to seek help and rescue in Poland. Because the Polish Government has neither the financial resources nor the infrastructure to cope with this huge wave of people, they have asked all their citizens to open their doors and hearts to help the refugees.
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| IT STARTED SMALL. Their goal is ambitious. Howard and Alex want to help, not just one or two families, but dozens of mothers and their children. To do this they needed funding. Howard immediately reached out to several of his Wolsztyn Experience friends who he knew he could count on for financial donations. With this initial “seed” money for food, clothing, medicine and a lease on a vacant house, Alex contacted the Polish relief effort and told them they could accept four families. The first family arrived two days later, a young mother with a five-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy. The mom had only one small suitcase and each child had a cuddle-toy. The second family of five arrived in Wolsztyn with just the clothes on their backs! |
THE EFFORT EXPANDS. To support more families, they needed additional funding. They knew that their past clients, many of whom come back to Wolsztyn year-after-year for additional steam training, had formed warm bonds and close friendships with the railroad personnel as well as the people they met in the hotels, restaurants and shops. They were confident that these “student-engineers” would be the ones most eager to help. In addition to people in Great Britain, Howard reached-out to three close friends, Stan Ames in Massachusetts, Carl Comeau in New Jersey and Carl Franz, the U.S. Representative for the Wolsztyn Experience, in Maryland. Each has contacts with past patrons of the Wolsztyn Experience as well as contacts in the railfan and model railroad communities. These three were raising funds, working separately, but on parallel paths. Then, Stan reached out to the National Model Railroad Society. Their “Hub Division” was willing to help by being the collection point for all U.S. donated funds. And very importantly, it is an established 501(c)(3) organization. Thus, it made sense to combine their collective efforts and funnel all contributions through the NMRA. All donations qualify as charitable donations from an IRS standpoint.
| WE ARE MAKING PROGRESS. HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP. |
Please make your check, money order, bill pay or other type of funding document payable to: “The HUB Division Inc.” It is important that you reference the Ukraine Support Fund in the memo line on your check to ensure that your contribution is credited to the correct account. Currently, the system is not capable of accepting credit cards. If the use of a credit card is your only option, contact Carl Franz and he will make a special arrangement for you. Please include your name, email address and postal address so that we can send you a letter that confirms that your donation qualifies as a charitable donation. It will also enable us to send you periodic news updates from the Wolsztyn Experience Ukraine Support Fund. Please Mail your checks to: This U.S. fund raising effort is supported by: Thank you very much for considering our request. If you have friends or associates who may want to contribute, please pass along this information to them. If you have questions, please contact:
We greatly appreciate your consideration of supporting this worthy cause. Sincerely, |