The Moscow Orthodox social ministry “Miloserdie” service has concluded its annual program “Give Joy For Christmas”. This year the Miloserdie (which stands for “Mercy” in Russian) raised 13 thousand presents and 4 million, 718 thousand Rubles. 

Under the “Give Joy For Christmas” church charity program, anyone who is willing to help can choose a present on the program website dari.miloserdie.ru, buy it and bring it, or order its delivery to the presents collection office in Moscow. Another option was to donate money, which is also used to purchase presents. The list of presents is usually written by the “Miloserdie” coordinators and volunteers, who actually know what kind of presents would be particularly welcome. 

“Since the beginning of January, our staff and volunteers have been congratulating those who are particularly in need of Christmas miracles: lonely elderly persons, orphans, homeless people, and hospital in-patients, including those in the “Red zones”. We are still distributing the presents, because we need to attend to almost 30 thousand people,” said Svetlana Shepel, the program organizer.

The "Give Joy for Christmas" campaign was launched 11 years ago. Since then, the total number of gifts donated under this program and given to the needy has reached 295 thousand.