2005: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Ukrainians in the U.S.: focused on Yushchenko

Coordinating, planning and preparing for the second visit to the United States of Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and his wife Kateryna kept Ukrainians in the United States busy during 2005.

Following last winter's Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which helped bring Mr. Yushchenko to power, Ukrainians in America were eager to roll out the red carpet for Mr. Yushchenko's trip to Philadelphia, New York and Chicago.

In Philadelphia on September 17, as Mr. Yushchenko arrived to receive the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, busloads of youths from the greater Philadelphia area arrived with their parents at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Following the ceremony and a subsequent press conference, President Yushchenko and First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko, and their entourage, proceeded to the Ukrainian cathedral. Immaculate Conception Cathedral was filled to its capacity of 2,500, while hundreds more gathered outside the church.

President Yushchenko was met outside by Metropolitan Archbishop Stefan Soroka, leader of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the United States; Ulana Mazurkevich, president of the Ukrainian American Community Committee; the Rev. Ivan Demkiv, pastor of the Ukrainian cathedral; and other clergy. On behalf of the youth of Philadelphia, little Khrystyk Senyk McKernan of the Svitlychka (preschool) presented Mrs. Yushchenko with a bouquet of orange roses.

While walking down the cathedral's aisle with the first lady, President Yushchenko greeted the Ukrainian youth of Philadelphia - several hundred of them representing various local organizations, including Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization and the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM).

Two presentations were made on behalf of the Ukrainian community of Philadelphia. Children from Plast, SUM and the Ukrainian Heritage School presented President Yushchenko with an Orange Revolution banner signed by the youth of Philadelphia. The president later told organizers that the banner would be placed in the Museum of the Orange Revolution that is planned to be opened in Kyiv.

The day before Mr. Yushchenko's visit to Philadelphia, the president and First Lady Kateryna Yushchenko visited the newly built Ukrainian Museum in New York City on September 16. The two were met in the entryway of the museum by Olha Hnateyko, board president, Maria Shust, director, and Sophia Hewryk, board member. The president and his wife were presented with bouquets of flowers.

Just moments before the president arrived, outside of the museum, on the sidewalk and across the street, large crowds had gathered. Near the museum entrance, a group of children from St. George Ukrainian Catholic School, clad in embroidered shirts and blouses, some holding colorful bouquets of flowers, moved restlessly.

"Your visit, Mr. President and Mrs. Yushchenko, is a monumental historical event for The Ukrainian Museum, and it will be recorded in golden letters in the history of our institution," Mrs. Hnateyko said.

Valeriy Kuchinsky, Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations, with his wife, Alla, and Borys Tarasyuk, at that time the country's acting minister of foreign affairs, accompanied the presidential party. Along with them was the Ukrainian former heavyweight championship boxer Vitalii Klitschko.

Prof. Jaroslaw Leshko, curator of the museum's premier inaugural exhibition "Alexander Archipenko: Vision and Continuity," accompanied President and Mrs. Yushchenko through the exhibition.

The day before her visit to The Ukrainian Museum, on September 15 Mrs. Yushchenko hosted an elegant reception "to celebrate the cultural heritage of Ukraine" at the Ukrainian Institute of America, a landmark end-of-the-19th century mansion located on 79th Street and Fifth Avenue.

The event at the UIA, located on New York City's famed "Museum Mile," was attended by the U.N. secretary general's wife, Nane Annan; First Ladies Jolanta Kwasniewska of Poland, Silvia Gasparovicova of Slovakia and Andrée Lahoud of Lebanon, along with American political and cultural figures, and members of public and charitable organizations, as well as leading Ukrainian American women, among them community activists, professionals and journalists.

Mrs. Yushchenko, who was in New York with her husband for the World Summit at the United Nations, welcomed guests at her reception by quoting the words of Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko, who described newly independent Ukraine as "a new state with a thousand-year-old culture."

The following month Mrs. Yushchenko met with invited leaders of the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America (UMANA) at their Chicago headquarters on October 8 enlisting support from organized Ukrainian American health professionals in expanding and modernizing Ukraine's health system.

The Kyiv Committee of the Chicago Sister Cities International Program (CSCIP) hosted the first lady's visit on the eve of Mayor Richard M. Daley's own trip to Kyiv exploring avenues of cooperation in health care fields. CSCIP Kyiv Chair Marta Farion and Health Subcommittee Chair Lida Truchly facilitated Mrs. Yushchenko's visits to several area hospitals and medical facilities.

Mrs. Yushchenko presented an overview of the Ukraine 3000 Foundation, with emphasis on a partnership program called "From Hospital to Hospital." The project seeks to raise the level of medical diagnosis and treatment in Ukraine to international standards within five years.

The following day, on October 9, Mrs. Yushchenko joined four choruses on stage in Chicago to sing the religious hymn "Bozhe Velykyi" as the finale to a concert highlighting the two-day Festival of Kyivan Liturgical Music. The festival included a daylong seminar on the Kyivan liturgical tradition and a hierarchical liturgy sung in the Kyivan style.

Several months prior to that liturgical concert, the United States Congress took up an issue of great concern to many Ukrainians. The Congressional Resources Committee, Subcommittee on National Parks, met on June 9 to consider the case for a Ukrainian Famine-Genocide memorial in the nation's capital.

House Resolution 562 "to authorize the government of Ukraine to establish a memorial on federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the victims of the man-made Famine" would memorialize the 7 million to 10 million people who died in the 1932-1933 Ukrainian Famine-Genocide.

Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), who introduced the resolution on February 2, said that the memorial should be separate from the planned Victims of Communism Memorial because of the Famine's significance and magnitude. Rep. Levin noted that the "Ukrainian government will donate the memorial" at "no cost to the taxpayers ... just the land needs to be dedicated."

The memorial is scheduled to open in 2008 as part of the commemorations of the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide.

The effort to build the memorial got a boost when the U.S. House of Representatives on November 16 passed H.R. 562, a bill that authorizes the establishment of a memorial on federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the victims of the Famine-Genocide that occurred in Ukraine in 1932-1933.

The National Parks Committee's regional director for the National Capital Region, Joseph Lawler, expressed the committee's opposition to the legislation. "We believe that creating separate memorials for individual groups," stated Mr. Lawler, "would detract from the overall message of the Victims of Communism Memorial and could, potentially, create an unfortunate competition amongst various groups for limited memorial sites in our nation's capital."

Throughout 2005, the Ukrainian National Information Service continued its efforts to gain support for this legislation among members of Congress. In the end, 36 members of the House of Representatives co-sponsored the bill.

The Ukrainian Famine Genocide was taken up also on the state level by the Illinois State Legislature. State Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago), the sponsor of House Bill 312, said: "This long overdue legislation will help us ensure that our students learn of the devastating role that genocide has played around the world throughout history, and unfortunately, in current times."

Rep. John Froehlich (R-Schaumburg) co-sponsored the bill. House Bill 312 cleared the hearing in the Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education on February 9. Committee members voted 13-8 in favor of the bill. On March 1 the Illinois House of Representatives passed the bill by a vote of 96 in favor to 11 against, with seven abstaining.

Then, on August 5, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the bill into law. The bill requires that public high schools in the state teach about genocides worldwide, including the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933. "In addition to learning about the Nazi atrocities of the 20th century, students will now learn about more recent acts of genocide around the world, including those in Armenia, Ukraine, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan," the governor said in a statement released the same day. The law took effect immediately.

Meanwhile, several months earlier, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, Boston Chapter, sponsored a presentation about the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide for teachers gathered at the Northeast Regional Conference on the Social Studies held at the Boston Plaza Hotel on March 14-17. The presentation was offered as a special 70-minute session geared to teachers of high school and college/university.

The speakers included two local priests, Father Yaroslav Nalysnyk and Father Roman Tarnawsky; a Famine eyewitness, Anna Raniuk; and Dr. Lubomyr Hayda of Harvard University. The presentation also included the documentary "Harvest of Despair."

Other commemorations of the Famine Genocide in the United States included one organized in the Chicago area by the Ukrainian American community, which came together on September 18. The Ukrainian Genocide Famine Foundation - U.S.A. (UGFF) chose to hold the memorial service at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Chicago's historic Ukrainian Village. Marching in the procession were three distinguished political guests: Illinois State Sen. Jacqueline Collins, Illinois State Rep. Fritchey and Christine Herbert, a representative of the office of Gov. Blagojevich.

In New York City, the annual national observance to commemorate the anniversary of the Ukrainian Famine Genocide of 1932-1933 was held on November 19 at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Cardinal Edward Egan of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York paid homage to the Famine's victims. He noted that St. Patrick's Cathedral welcomes all "to commemorate this tragedy of the Ukrainian people."

Of particular interest were remarks delivered by Nigel Colley, grandnephew of Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist who exposed the true nature of the genocidal Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933. "To the list of the millions of Ukrainian peasants who lost their lives due to Stalin's man-made Famine," Mr. Colley stated, "the name of the only Welshman, my great uncle, Gareth Jones, should perhaps now be added." He noted that newly discovered evidence at the British Public Records Office "points the finger of blame for Gareth's murder in 1935 in the direction of Moscow, quite probably in retribution for his international exposure of the Holodomor." Mr. Colley said Jones' only crime was his "dogged pursuit of truth."

The day before, Mr. Colley was among a small but vocal group of protesters who took to the streets in New York City to demand that The New York Times publicly repudiate the reporting of Walter Duranty, the newspaper's international correspondent who claimed that reports of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 were erroneous.

A solitary protester stood in front of the building's brass-framed revolving doors and handed out flyers as curious tourists walked by or as people came out of the building's lobby. Across the street a group of some 35 protesters called on the publisher of The New York Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., to acknowledge that the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Mr. Duranty in 1932 was given in error.

"It's the moral thing to do," said Volodomyr Kurylo, president of the United Ukrainian American Organizations of Greater New York. "After all, the lies that Duranty dispatched and were printed in The New York Times denied that Stalin was intentionally, with impunity, starving between 7 to 10 million innocent Ukrainian men, women and children to death."

The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America celebrated its 65th anniversary in 2005. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Borys Tarasyuk sent greetings on the occasion. "I sincerely congratulate the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America on the occasion of its glorious jubilee - 65th anniversary - and on behalf of the entire government of Ukraine I thank you for your support, sincere determination and decisive action in promoting the interests of Ukraine within the international community, as well as assisting democratic development in our state," Mr. Tarasyuk said.

The Ukrainian National Information Service, the Washington office of UCCA, also made headlines in 2005. The Chicago Friends of UNIS mobilized their efforts to organize and host the 28th annual UNIS fund-raiser event in Chicago on May 25. The event was held at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Chicago and was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation of First Security Federal Savings Bank and Selfreliance Ukrainian American Federal Credit Union.

The distinguished guest that day was Ambassador John Tefft, former deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, former U.S. ambassador to Lithuania, and currently U.S. ambassador-designate to Georgia. The event by the fund-raising committee of Chicago raised $60,000 for UNIS's continued operating expenses for the balance of this year.

Several months before the fund-raiser, the UCCA and UNIS organized Ukrainian Days in Washington on March 2-3. The goal of Ukrainian Days was to promote the concerns of the Ukrainian American community, as well as to establish better contacts with its members' elected representatives in Washington.

Over 30 community members participated in the two-day advocacy event, which began with a briefing session at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), with the participation of the following individuals: Kyle Parker, vice-president, AFPC; Karen Stewart, senior desk officer, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova at the U.S. Department of State; Dr. Ariel Cohen, senior research fellow, Heritage Foundation; Jim Zogby, Ethnic Council director, Democratic National Committee; and, Mr. Sawkiw, president, UCCA.

In all of their meetings on Capitol Hill, the participants of Ukrainian Days presented members of Congress with various policy papers on issues of importance to the Ukrainian American community. Topics covered included: U.S.-Ukraine relations, foreign assistance to Ukraine, the proposed Genocide memorial in Washington, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with Ukraine.

Toward the end of the year, the UCCA was among several groups working to generate support for and interest in Ukraine's March 2006 parliamentary elections. The UCCA, the Shevchenko Scientific Society, the Columbia University Ukrainian Studies Program and the Brooklyn Ukrainian Group (BUG), joined forces to launch their "Race for the Rada" discussion series.

The first such event, organized by the Brooklyn Ukrainian Group (BUG), was held on December 15 at the UCCA's National Office in New York City. Serving as the evening's emcee, Roxy Toporowych, co-founder and board member of BUG, welcomed the guests to the first Race for the Rada discussion on the topic of the influence of musicians, celebrities and music on the Orange Revolution and during the run-up to the parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The evening's guest speaker, Dr. Adriana Helbig, an ethnomusicologist, delivered an interesting presentation on "Music and the Orange Revolution: Sounding the Ukrainian Nation."

The UCCA again saw itself in headlines when the Ukrainian Fraternal Association decided to rejoin the Ukrainian American umbrella organization. The decision was made during the UFA's annual meeting on June 23-24 and an announcement was published by the association's newspaper, Narodna Volia, on July 7.

Much earlier in the year, officials at the new $9 million Ukrainian Museum building were happy to officially bless the building on February 6. Visitors were welcomed inside the three-story brick and glass structure for the first time since construction was completed.

Close to 500 people stood on the street outside the building at 222 E. Sixth St., listening intently as Bishop Basil Losten of the Stamford Eparchy of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and Archbishop Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. concelebrated the blessing with solemn rites and prayers, sprinkling holy water on the edifice.

Olha Hnateyko, president of the museum's board of trustees, Maria Shust, museum director, and John Luchechko, former board president, cut the ribbon spanning the front of the building. Ms. Hnateyko radiated the joy of museum directors and staffers as she exclaimed, "Finally, we're going into our new home."

Iryna Kurowyckyj, president of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America (UNWLA), noted that the day was particularly meaningful for her organization, which initiated the museum 28 years ago with 800 artifacts. Since then, Ms. Kurowycky said, UNWLA members have raised over $3.5 million for the museum.

The 2005 annual meeting was the first held at the museum's newly constructed, modern facility. About 80 members and friends of the institution attended the proceedings, which were held in the comfort of the new building's lower-level auditorium.

The annual meeting voted in several new members to the 2005-2006 slate of the board of trustees. Ms. Hnateyko was elected president for a fourth term.

Also during 2005, the Ukrainian Institute of America honored Vitalii and Volodymyr Klitschko with its 2004 Persons of the Year award during a dinner at the New York Hilton on March 8. Some 400 fans and admirers mobbed Vitalii Klitschko during the cocktail hour and between courses. They surged around him for autographs, picture-taking and a close-up look at the six-foot-seven-inch gladiator.

He graciously accepted bronze medals, one for himself and one for his younger brother, Olympic champion Volodymyr Klitschko, who was unable to attend because of a commitment to accompany President Viktor Yushchenko to a high-level meeting in Germany the next day.

Moving from the Ukrainian Institute of America to another New York-based organization, Self Reliance New York Federal Credit Union donated $50,000 to Vovcha Tropa Plast Camp.

Bohdan Kekish, president of the credit union, along with Bohdan Kurchak, treasurer and CFO, and Paul Liteplo, manager of member services, bestowed the check upon Yurij Huk, president of the board of directors of the Vovcha Tropa Plast Camp, on January 29. The donation was used for the camp's building fund for an open-air pavilion.

In the summer of 2004, the camp's 12-member board of directors, known by its Ukrainian-language acronym OTK, determined that a pavilion should be constructed at Vovcha Tropa to provide a central gathering place for campers and parents. A $10,000 donation made by a former camper who wished to remain anonymous initiated the planning for the pavilion.

The Ukrainian National Women's League of America hosted its most recent triennial convention on May 27-30 in Albany, N.Y. The four-day event included an intensive schedule of seminars, working meetings, elections and social events. The convention officially opened with a national board meeting held on May 27 chaired by UNWLA President Iryna Kurowyckyj, who was re-elected for the 2005-2008 term.

The evening also featured a guest appearance by Rep. Maurice Hinchey of New York, who represents the 22nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The highlight of an evening banquet was the presentation of the Young Women Achievers Awards to Orysia Woloszyn Dmytrenko, Christine M. Duzyj, Vera Farmiga, Roksolana Luchkan, Lusia Strus and Nadia Tarnawsky. Three additional award recipients, Larysa Halyna Pevny, Olenka Z. Pevny and Christina Zinycz, were unable to attend.

The following month the Ukrainian Medical Association of North America (UMANA) held its 38th Biennial Scientific Conference and 31st Assembly of Delegates on June 29-July 3 in Edmonton. Participants included nearly 100 health care professionals from the U.S.A., Canada and Ukraine. The guest of honor and keynote speaker was Dr. Mykola Polishchuk, minister of health of Ukraine.

The four-day event included two days of scientific presentations and one day devoted to the biennial business meeting with elections of new officers. The highlight of the business meeting was the election of the new administration for the term of 2005-2007 headed by Andrew Iwach, M.D. (Northern California), president.

Minister Polishchuk addressed the gathering of UMANA delegates, focusing on how UMANA and similar organizations in the diaspora could best be of assistance to Ukraine in this time of its medical professional evolution. Dr. Polishchuk awarded a plaque to Dr. Ehor Gauk of OSVITA, formally recognizing the effort expended by that group over the last decade in philanthropic and charitable assistance to Ukraine.

Founded in 1950, for the first time in 20 years UMANA held both its Scientific Conference and the Assembly of Delegates in Canada.

Several months after the UMANA conference, the Ukrainian American Bar Association held its 2005 annual meeting at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in South Beach, Fla. The meeting attracted a smaller group of participants, but it was attended by a considerable delegation from Ukraine that included notable judges, attorneys from Ukrinurkoleguia and other practicing jurists.

On September 17 the election of new officers and board of governors was held, with Andrew Pidgirsky elected president for 2005-2007.

Meanwhile, Ukrainians in the United States were also actively working in Ukraine this past year. The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation held its fourth annual Youth Leadership Program in 2005, which took place in Ukraine for the first time. The program, held on July 24-31, boasted the largest number of students ever - a total of 22 from more than 70 applicants. The final group consisted of four Ukrainian Americans, one Ukrainian from France and 17 Ukrainians from all regions of Ukraine.

Back in the United States, the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland announced that it had received a $50,000 grant toward its capital campaign from the Cleveland Selfreliance Federal Credit Union. The gift, to be paid over a five-year period, will assist in financing a new archives facility currently under construction. "We are deeply grateful to Cleveland Selfreliance for their support," said the museum's director, Andrew Fedynsky. "For the past 50 years, Cleveland Selfreliance has been a cornerstone of our community. The assistance they are providing us will help us preserve our collection for generations to come."

Meanwhile, in Ellenville, N.Y., the annual Lemko Vatra in the U.S. blazed for the fifth year in a row on June 24-26 at the resort of the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM). Each year, this vatra blazes with others from around the world - in Lemkivschyna, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia and Canada. The Organization for the Defense of Lemkivschyna (known by the acronym OOL) conductes this festival in the U.S.

Later in the year, the Ukrainian American Veterans participated in the procession of colors at the opening ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., on Veterans Day, November 11. The ceremonies started at 11 a.m. with the placing of the presidential wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Prior to the ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, the UAV held the 58th National Convention at the Ukrainian National Association's Soyuzivka resort on September 29 to October 2. The convention was run by the UAV national board headed by National Commander Anna Krawczuk with Immediate Past National Commander Mathew Koziak chairing the convention committee.

The weekend also maked the 31st Convention of the UAV National Ladies Auxiliary, with Oksana Koziak elected as the new president. Outgoing President Helen Drabyk received a citation and a standing ovation for her devoted leadership and dedication to the UAV.

The UAV also solicited proposals for the design of a national monument to be constructed to honor Ukrainian Americans who served in the United States Armed Forces. While the UAV sponsored the project, the memorial is being erected to not only honor both present and past members of the UAV, but to remember and recognize all veterans of Ukrainian descent who served in the Armed Forces of the United States of America.

The monument will be erected on the grounds of St. Andrew's Memorial Church and Cemetery at the Ukrainian Orthodox Archdiocesan Center in South Bound Brook, N.J., a venue that already contains many monuments to prominent Ukrainians. Mr. Koziak, of the UAV, and Protopresbyter Frank Estocin of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. are co-chairs of the UAV National Monument Committee.

Soyuzivka was also the host of a three-day conference, titled "A Day in the Life of the UPA - Ukrainian Insurgent Army" held on July 29-31. The event, based on the Litopys UPA (Chronicles of the UPA), was kicked off with the opening of an UPA exhibit.

At the entrance, a sign reading "Slava Ukraini - Heroyam Slava" (Glory to Ukraine - Glory to Our Heroes) welcomed visitors into the world of the Ukrainska Povstanska Armia (UPA) with archival photographs, maps, personal artifacts, graphics and a selection of books from the Litopys UPA, which publishes primary-source documents and materials from the World War II era with each volume or series of volumes devoted to a specific theme, a given time period and/or region.

Petrusia Paslawsky and Nadia Dubanowitz led a group walk of approximately 50 people to Soyuzivka's Studio, where groups of 10 were escorted into a below-ground, dark and dank room where a bunker might have existed. Artifacts from World War II silently represented what it would have been like for UPA soldiers spending time in hideaways such as this.

The case of John Demjanjuk was in the news again in 2005, when the chief immigration judge of the United States ruled on June 20 that Mr. Demjanjuk, who the U.S. Justice Department claims was a guard at Nazi concentration camps in Sobibor, Majdanek and Flossenberg, could be deported from the United States. At the same time, Judge Michael J. Creppy said Mr. Demjanjuk could fight any deportation order.

Mr. Demjanjuk, 85, was stripped of his U.S. citizenship in 2002 because he allegedly lied on his application to enter the United States after World War II. The Demjanjuk case dates back to 1977, when the Justice Department first accused him of being "Ivan the Terrible," a notorious guard at the Treblinka death camp.

On December 20 Judge Creppy ordered that Mr. Demjanjuk be deported from the United States to his native Ukraine, adding that the former Cleveland autoworker could be deported to Germany or Poland if Ukraine refused to accept him. However, Mr. Demjanjuk's legal battle is not yet over as he has the right within 30 days to appeal the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Meanwhile, the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine (ODFFU) held its triennial convention on October 2 at the Ramada Inn in East Hanover, N.J. Michael Koziupa, 54, of Cedar Knolls, N.J., was unanimously elected president of the ODFFU.

Much earlier in the year, The Ukrainian Weekly learned that a long-running lawsuit by four individuals who claimed they were unjustly removed from the Ukrainian American Cultural Foundation's board of directors appeared resolved with all parties involved in the dispute willing to abide by a court-ordered agreement, which came on January 12.

The agreement between the feuding members of the board, made with the help of a New York State court order, added the four plaintiffs in the original lawsuit to the board plus one of their supporters - bringing the number of people now on the UACF board of directors to 13 - and affirmed the past actions of the original eight-member group.

Later in the year, on September 17, Ukrainian Day at Giants Stadium was held in East Rutherford, N.J. It was a daylong event that featured performances, vendors and sports. Ukrainian Day was organized by a special committee of area Ukrainian community activists - some 50 people in all - led by Gene Chyzowych, former coach of U.S. Olympic, World Cup and national soccer teams, who currently chairs the Metrostars Youth Development Committee. Profits of over $6,000 from ticket sales ($5 per ticket sold) were distributed as donations to 35 Ukrainian community groups.

The Hollywood Trident Foundation met on December 13 at the University of California at Los Angeles to celebrate its fifth anniversary.

Oleh Wolowyna, a demographer who writes about Ukrainians in the United States, reported in an article in The Ukrainian Weekly on January 9 about the "Fourth Wave" of migration from Ukraine to the United States.

Several months later, representatives from Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM) chapters throughout the United States convened for a plenum at the SUM "Oselia" (resort) in Ellenville, N.Y., on Saturday, April 23. Bohdan Harhaj, the president of SUM, welcomed the 50 participants.

The cornerstone of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Ukrainian American Youth Association's campgrounds in Ellenville, N.Y., turned out to be the banquet and fund-raising cocktail reception that took place on July 9 at the "oselia."

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Plast camp Pysanyi Kamin in Ohio marked its 40th anniversary. Celebrations of the milestone started with Sviato Yuriya (Feast of St. George) held on May 28-30.

The 27th biannual U.S. national conference of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization was held the weekend of October 22-23 at the Soyuzivka estate in Kerhonkson, N.Y. Over 100 members from various branches of the Plast organization in the U.S. came together to report on activities of the previous two years and also to map out goals and activities for the next two years. Conference delegates also elected a new U.S. Plast National Command under the leadership of Marta Kuzmowycz.

In the very beginning of 2005, an estimated 350 New York Ukrainians, most sporting orange scarves in support of Ukraine's President-elect Viktor Yushchenko, ended their Christmas day on January 7 by caroling at Rockefeller Center. This was the first time that the renowned tree was left illuminated for the Julian calendar Christmas celebration.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 15, 2006, No. 3, Vol. LXXIV

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