A good feeling: for whom do schoolchildren refuse bouquets on September 1st
On Knowledge Day, many NGOs offer students and their parents to give the teacher one bouquet from the class, and donate the money they save to charity. This year, the initiators of the Vera Foundation and the Dom with a Lighthouse children's hospice hope to surpass last year's record of 96 million rubles raised during the Children Instead of Flowers campaign. The rest of the funds have more modest expectations, but these funds will also help provide their wards with treatment, rehabilitation, or significantly improve their quality of life. Teachers and school principals support the initiative and invite students to donate themselves. Who will be helped by the funds raised is described in the Izvestia article.
Children need help
Artyom from Moscow went to a regular school last school year, and his teachers described him as a capable and diligent child. In his free time, he likes to assemble large puzzles and cars from a construction kit. At the age of 13, like many teenagers, he dreams of skateboarding. The boy already has a scooter, but so far there is no opportunity to do what he likes.
Even in infancy, he was diagnosed with Hirschsprung's disease, in which there are no nerve nodes in the intestine, so food cannot move through it. For the first year and a half of his life, the boy received food through a gastrostomy, a special tube in his stomach, and subsequently could eat on his own.
But in April of this year, Artyom began to feel worse, he was hospitalized, and then most of his intestines were removed. The boy has had a gastrostomy reinstituted, and he also receives nutrients through a catheter in a vein. He dreams of going back to school, but for this he needs to gain strength. Artyom's food supply and supplies for his medical equipment cost about 970,000 rubles per year.
Danila from Orenburg is only two years old. He has a rare genetic disease called myotubular myopathy, in which muscles weaken due to a malfunction of proteins in muscle cells. Danya cannot breathe on his own, for this he needs a tube in his throat and a ventilator. The boy spends most of his time in bed.
For a more comfortable life with Danilo's diagnosis, he needs a special medical bed with an electric drive that allows him to adjust his body position. It costs about 198,000 rubles. It was not possible to get a bed from the state, even with the assistance of lawyers from the Vera Foundation.
"Children instead of flowers"
Russian schoolchildren and their parents can help such children through the campaign "Children instead of flowers". This year it will be held for the 11th time. Its initiators, the Vera Foundation and the Dom with a Lighthouse children's hospice, offer to give the teacher one bouquet from the class on September 1, and donate the money saved to charity. For example, the cost of 970 bouquets will be enough to help Artyom, the fund calculated, and for 198 bouquets it will be possible to buy a bed for Danil.
To participate in the promotion, it is enough to register on the foundation's website to receive paraphernalia or instructions on how to make it.
— Last year, the participants of the campaign raised more than 96 million rubles, which is our new record. In the entire history of the campaign, we have never reached such amounts," the fund told Izvestia. — Thanks to this, 671 families with seriously ill children and young adults received assistance.
In 2024, more than 13,000 applications were received from classes wishing to join the campaign. So far, about 8,000 participants have registered — both individual students, classes, and even entire schools from 879 localities.
— Our class participated in the action for the first time last year. We bought a rose each, and we got a bouquet of 27 roses for the teacher, and we also collected donations, as many as we could, but we didn't specify the amount," said a representative of the parent committee of one of the classes in Kemerovo. — I printed out the thanks and the certificate, the kids were proud, it was obvious from them.
The initiators of the action are the teachers themselves — they first tell their parents about it, and then spend a class hour with the students, where they tell the children about kindness, charity and the importance of helping others. In 2014, it was the teacher of one of the Moscow lyceums who came up with a flash mob to abandon flowers in favor of charity, which then turned into a large-scale action, the foundation recalled. This year, over 8,700 teachers chose one bouquet from the class and help for the children.
Who else is holding promotions for the Day of Knowledge
By September 1, many charitable foundations are already holding similar events. Students and their parents have the opportunity to choose the one that is closer to them. For example, the Nastenka Foundation is holding the "Children instead of Flowers" campaign for the seventh time, offering to support children with cancer and other serious life-threatening diseases.
"Although we still encounter some negative comments about the campaign, we see that there are more and more supporters every year," Marina Yergina, executive director of this charitable foundation, told Izvestia.
In 2024, 67 schools, 1.5 thousand classes from different cities of Russia joined the Nastenki campaign. They collected over 1.4 million rubles. Thanks to these funds, five children with serious illnesses received vital help: Alicia and Maxim underwent radiation therapy on time, Sasha and Artemy were able to enter rehabilitation, Vladislav underwent heart surgery.
The Sheredar Charitable Foundation plans to spend all the proceeds from a similar campaign on the purchase of materials for rehabilitation workshops where children with cancer and their families are engaged. These are paints, polymer clay, textiles for painting and other consumables. By the end of 2025, the foundation plans to conduct a rehabilitation program for 75 children with cancer and two programs for 30 families with pediatric cancer.
The Mayaki People Charitable Foundation, which helps children and adults with genetic, oncological and other orphan diseases, hopes to raise funds for children from the Altai Territory, Crimea, Moscow, Yaroslavl, Leningrad and Volgograd regions.
— Every name is not just a child. This is the story. This is a family that hopes. This is a mother who is holding on with her last strength. We are often told, "These are just flowers." And we say no, it's much more than that. It's a choice. It's care turned into action. These are the first steps towards caring," said Lilia Tsygankova, director of the foundation.
The Find a Family Charitable Foundation has been participating in the campaign annually since 2020, raising funds for the systematic support of foster children in their new families, primarily for psychological and correctional assistance, rehabilitation and medical needs. Last year, the foundation raised about 89 thousand rubles, which allowed them to pay for five months of classes with psychologists for the wards.
The Perspektivy charity organization called its action "Perspectives instead of flowers": the foundation's wards with severe disabilities and mental disorders are rarely seen in cinemas, cafes, parks or playgrounds, it is difficult for them to live a normal life and communicate with others. And the project just helps to support their prospects and future — to get help and support, to engage in creativity, to dream and to live at home.
— We are raising funds to support St. Petersburg children, so we would really like teachers, parents and schoolchildren from St. Petersburg to pay attention to the action. So that they can help those who are close to them," Evgenia Sokolovskaya, Director of Public Relations at the Perspektivy Charitable Foundation, told Izvestia.
The Alyosha Charitable Foundation offers the participants gifts and festive paraphernalia for the Day of Knowledge.
— Burger King has given us 30,000 notebooks and sticker packs, which allows us to motivate even more students to participate. The classes who chose to save children's lives instead of flowers come to the festive lineup on September 1 dressed up and happy," the foundation explained.
Last year, more than one hundred thousand schoolchildren from 720 cities and villages across the country joined the "Children Instead of Flowers" campaign with the Alyosha Foundation. During the campaign, over 32 million rubles were raised, which made it possible to pay for the treatment of 24 children.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
