Dear friends, we are pleased to share with you photos and a report from a charity event dedicated to Valentine's Day. The charity event “Kohaytesya chornobryvi” took place on February 15 at the Ukrainian Hall San Francisco and brought together the Ukrainian community, guests from San Francisco and the surrounding area, as well as the city of Sacramento.

The theme of the evening put everyone in a wonderful and romantic mood, as bright feelings help us see our world in a range of bright colors, inspire us to create and change lives for the better.

Yarema Kuzyshyn, co-founder of the non-profit organization “Hromada”, started the evening with a welcoming introduction and a report for 2024. He introduced the guests with the projects that the organization managed to fund last year in Ukraine.

The concert program was opened by Stasya Volskaya, who performed popular Ukrainian songs with the accompaniment of the virtuoso guitarist Anton Demianchuk.

The highlight of the evening was the performance of professional musicians and singers, namely opera singers Ivanna Taratula Filipenko and Oleksandra Zabashta, who performed world hits in Spanish, Italian and English about bright feelings and human relationships. Some of them are “Come Prima”, “Besame Mucho”, “I found my love in Portofino”. The piano duet, consisting of pianist Natalie Kokhanyy and composer Olena Lushchik, performed the pieces “Beloved”, “Deep Well”, and “Spring”.

The program of the evening also included an auction with valuable items, and the participants had the opportunity to take an active part in it.

Special thanks to the generous donors of the auction items, namely:

Natalie Kokhanyy for the silver ornament “Angel”, artist Ihor Butkovsky for two wonderful paintings, Zhanna Romanchenko and Tanya Omelyuk for the transportation of lots from Ukraine, member of Ukrainian Parlament Rostyslav Tistyk for a valuable souvenir of chevrons of glorious Ukrainian military units, Anna Hontar for a wonderful necklace of her own work, Natalia Lutsak for an authentic home-made embroidered women's shirt. Yulya ‒ for delicious craft cookies, Tanya Pushka ‒ for embroidered Christmas tree decorations.

The event was not without the active participation of each of the guests of the evening. All those present took part in a collective singing contest. This added to the spirit of competition and brought everyone a lot of positive mood and smiles.

We also want to sincerely thank all the guests of the evening, because your presence made it special! To all those who supported us financially but could not attend for valid reasons. We thank our team of volunteer artists: Natalie Kokhanyy, Ivanna Taratula Filipenko, Oleksandra Zabashta, Olena Lushchik, Stasya Volskaya, Andriy Shegera, Anton Demianchuk.

We are grateful to the Ukrainian Hall San Francisco Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic Church and Father Roman Bobesiuk for the kindness of the venue.

We would like to thank the team that provided a delicious dinner, namely: Nataliya Bankova, Alla Pogorelova, Lyubov Starodubtseva, Anita Kassem Kashmiri, Tetiana Marchenko, Anna Myslyvets, Dmytro Starodubtsev, Olga Nakhodkina.

We would like to thank Julia Sydorenko and her company @floryi_com for the floral decoration of the tables.

We thank Marina Anisovych for supplying delicious dumplings @maryna_pastry_chef.

We thank Vasyl Vusatyuk for providing transportation.

We also thank Andriy Shegera and Taras Turiv for the sound and lighting of the evening.

We thank Andrii Slota, Andrii Fil and Ivan Haid for their help with organizational issues.

We would like to thank Yuriy Bondarchuk for the wonderful and professional photos.

Since we all had a common goal ‒ to raise funds for Hromada's initiatives, the result of our efforts was a successful financial result!

So, the total amount of funds raised was $5,516.

Costs of organizing and holding the evening: $994.25.

The result of the evening: $4,521.75!

Let's do good together and for the good of Ukraine!

THANK YOU!