On February 8th our parish assembly hall hosted a charity concert to benefit the children's shelter of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. The benefit recital included songs, arias and music by Sviridov, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bizet, Puccini and Cilea. Oleg Golovan's touching story about the children of the shelter, wonderful singing of our choirmaster Roksana Zeinapur and a great piano performance by Maria Shcherbakova helped to raise nearly $1,000 ($998) to the benefit of the shelter in the Ukrainian village of Old Tarazh. In addition to monetary donations parishioners also brought in about 225lb in needed shelter items. The money and donated items have already been sent to the orphanage by a group of our parish members.

Many thanks to the organizers, performers, concert audience and everyone who took the time, effort and money to support a good cause!