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Hi Guys

Feb has been a very slow month, not much happened really, see below.

Storage
We have all our goods ready and waiting to be stored unfortunately the TA cannot help us with storage this year, which is a shame as they have been brilliant. I have rang everyone from council to military services to self storage companies but we cannot get help. So, if you know of anyone who can help with donated storage until Sept , please do get in touch. We really appreciate it very much indeed.

Book sale
We have had confirmation that my place of work will allow us to hold a book sale to raise the funds towards the transport and the various renovations needed at the Orphanage. We have agreed the book sale will be held on 1st April. It is only open to staff so we will see how it goes. We have been donated lots of books and CD from Freegle and friends, which hopefully will sell, but if not ,we will take them to Bulgaria and ask for donations from the expats at our Garden Party. So fingers crossed all goes well.

Easter Chicks
Margaret our very good friend and avid supporter, again comes from Freegle has been knitting little chicks and putting a little cream egg inside. She raise a total of £35.50 when she took them to friends - This is a fantastic amount, well done Margaret!! You are a star! Myself and my friend Maureen have been knitting them too and we will bring them to the book sale on 1st April hopefully people will make donations - Oh they are so cute.

The wool project
We have a large box of wool now, but for the project we really need lots more. We have written to all the wool companies but so far only one company has replied and that is Simplywool.com in Scotland. The have been fantastic and send us a bag of wool and Christine also said she would start collecting and send what she can before the load is transported to Bulgaria. Thank you Christine, you have been wonderful! We will keep trying various other companies and of course we have the Freegle members, who have already given us some wool and needles. So if you can help please do get in touch.

People can also knit square for us and the ladies in the home can sew them together and make blankets - We also need lots and lots of good quality clean single blankets, which I will put an appeal our for in due course. We have such a long way to go yet with the wool. Again if you can help or know of anyone who can please do contact us. Special thanks to Elly who is always there to help out and support us. You are a little treasure! thanks.

Donations
A company called Great Gizmos in Crawley kindly send us a box of items for our shoeboxes, this is just fantastic - various items like moulding/bead kits, small board games, novelty handbag notebooks little cup cakes trinket cups and such. They are just lovely and the children will adore them - So thanks a million to Emma and Great Gizmos for helping us out Your donation will make so many children happy.

Also Hush Puppies donated 3 boxes of shoes to us they are mostly for the younger children and another box for the teenage girls although there was also some for the boys too. They are just fantastic so thanks to Sarah and the MD at Leicester for you wonderful donations. And of course a very special thanks to Bruce Dunn our very good friend from Scotland who offered to pick the shoes up on his way down to P'Boro from Scotland - Bruce you are wonderful and truly our guardian angel. Thanks a million time over.

Take a Break Magazine
Well I am sure you have all seen the story in Take a Break magazine - If not it is on the website under the photo gallery. It appears to be based around us, so you have an insight as to how things started and of course our plans for this year. The fee they will give for the article will go directly to the Orphanage fund for the transport and we will have various other fund raising events throughout the coming months and hopefully we will try to raise the transport costs. Although not sure there will be much, if anything left over for the renovations needed - but we will see how it goes. God is good.

The Garden Party
We have finally been given a date for the Garden Party at the Orphanage which is on Saturday Sept 25th from 1pm we do hope we get a lot more British &
Scottish there this year. We had fantastic support from 18 couples last year. Also a friend William and his wife Jo from Shuman came and brought their local mayor and friends too. They were very impressed at what we were doing. A few weeks later William send me an email to say that, his visit had a spin off effect with the Mayor as he came to William house saying he had some good for the children in the Shuman Orphanage. He asked William &
Jo to visit the Orphanage with him. This again, was fantastic new - The children were delighted with the gifts, even though they were feeling poorly at the time. William and Jo said it was fantastic to be able to help a very worthy cause. Well done guys! You did great. Dougie and I hope to have a few boxes we can donate to them this year too.

So you see, the word is spreading and people are beginning to help various other organizations, which is exactly what we set out to achieve. We will also check if we can organize with the various companies and Rotary club etc in Silsitra, if they can contact the local companies to see if they would fill a box of goods and send to the poor in the villagers and various other organizations. I hope to be visiting the local schools to speak with the directors about the children helping too..

Well that is if for now - We will just keep trying to find storage and hope someone will help us. I will keep you updated. Thanks again to all you lovely people who have helped and continue to help us, You are just fantastic and we could not do this without you.

Berni &
Dougie
Dimcho Debelianov

Hi Guys

The quarterly updated for March 2012 is now on the website below:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ... 97&
lang=en You will have to click the website to see the pictures

Thanks Berni will have a look later.

just had a look at the update. im amazed at the number of organisations you have worked with.
nice to hear you have some help with transportation.
good luck with this years projects.

Hi Guys

Here is the June Qtly Update you can read the info below or click the link here to inc the photos [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] ... &
Itemid=97

The Bulgarian Orphanage Appeal

June qtly update 2012

Here we are again on another update. The big news this time is:- after 3 years of waiting

‘We are now officially a Registered Charity Organisation No XT33062’ this is good news for us and we are very pleased, this means we can claim Gift Aid on donations from UK taxpayers (so we get an additional 25% courtesy off the tax man).

We have been to Bulgaria in May and we bought all new trainers, thanks to the wonderful donations from our friends in Italy, Michela &
Corrado and Borislav at Nominal Ltd Burgas Bulgaria. The children were overwhelmed as you can see from the photos. The new trainers will be used for their holidays.

photos see website

As you know The Hotel Delta Beach at Sunny Beach Bulgaria has generously donated a holiday for the children of the Dimcho to include 40 children and 6 adults on an all inclusive basis for 2 weeks. This is just amazing and we thank the owner and staff for this wonderful gift and for all the help and support they will give us to make this holiday a dream come true for our children. The children will love every minute of it. They were all talking about their holidays on our recent visit to the orphanage. They just can’t wait. Luisa Kearney and her parents Darren and Denise (from Quest Magazine Bulgaria) have offered to do a fun afternoon at The Hotel Delta Beach on Friday 31st August for the children. Once again the owner and the hotel staff are very happy to have this event, so if you fancy dropping in, please do. Nicola will be there with her camera.

We also have brilliant news:- As you know we were fundraising this year towards the new sofas at the Dimcho. However, a businessman in Silistra, who wishes to remain anonymous has come forward and bought the three large settees we need – what a fantastic thing this wonderful man has done. Thank you a million times over for this amazing gift, they are just lovely. You are truly one of our guardian angels kind Sir.

The Garden Party at the Silistra Orphanage Sat 6th October 2012

As you know we will be holding the annual fundraising Garden Party at the Dimcho Silistra Orphanage again this year. Many of you attended last year and told us how much you enjoyed it and we hope to see you there again this year. Plans are coming along nicely for this now. Valdi Totev and Demmi and Jonathan Taylor will be there for the music and entertainment, Bryan our official photographer and the lovely Nicola Miller will be snapping away again in the backround. We hope that Ivelina at BNT TV, Cindy &
Co from Alfo-Info. Rosie from Trust Global Radio. Alek from Quorum Silistra and Darren from Quest will be with us too. The children are already planning their show for us. If you wish to help in any way, perhaps to come along and entertain us or even donate a raffle prize, We will have various stalls including a BBQ, Refreshments, English books, crafts and ‘possibly’ a tabletop depending on interest shown’

My little cousin, Alfie McMahon decided he would donate some of his toys including this fabulous grand looking piano, a leap pad and accessories and this fantastic TV console with about 30 games. The doll is from another donor, Natasha B’s girls. These items will be given to the Malek Preslavetz Orphanage along with various other lovely toys from Charlene Wells, our wonderful long term donor and neighbour. Stella for all the lovely items including the new underwear, just fabulous! Thanks to our Sponsors Next, PC Howard Ltd,Tee Kay Packaging and everyone for your support. Kate has been busy again and filled three large boxes of goods. Dorothy, Kate and our lovely knitters have completed 31 blankets for the DMSGD Baby Orphanage. Kate will have the pleasure of presenting them to the Director Tanya on our visit in Oct. Thanks to all our ladies you do a fantastic job. Also thanks to our lovely ladies in Bulgaria who are also knitting away for us. Hopefully we will meet them at the Garden Party in Oct. dscf4897 dscf4905

We also have new donors The Bulgarian-British ::hip Society who we recently became acquainted with via Frank O’Reilly a really super chap who made contact with us when he learned of our cause and introduced us to the BBFS. They decided they would like to help us in some way and donated funds to us from which we will buy a digital camera and some memory cards. We will present this to the Director at the orphanage at our Annual Garden Party in October, when we can add photos of this gift to our website. Thank you so much to Frank and everyone at BBFS we really appreciate your support.

John Silkstone has already produced an anthology ‘book of short stories and poems’ titled: Pillars of Strength and the proceeds were donated to the orphanage, thank you John you did fantastic!! John is now in the process of putting book number 2 together. Therefore, please send your submissions of no more than three poems and three short stories up to 3000 words to John at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].uk

Donation:

Thank you to all our sponsors for all your donations of goods and financial support this year, we are truly grateful. Special thanks to our new sponsors LWM Consultants Ltd who will sponsor our transport – This is just fantastic news!!! We are truly grateful to you and everyone else for your continued support as we could not do this without your help and support. ’Thank you all so much’

This will be the last updated before the lorry goes in Sept therefore, if you have any items you wish to donate such as good clean items of clothing for all ages, cuddly toys, toiletries, items for the shoeboxes, wool, and raffle/auction prizes etc. If you can help please contact us, thanks for your ongoing support. We need all your donations to us in Peterborough by the end of August.

Finally: Now we have the Sofas the fundraised in October will go toward 20 complete sets of bunk beds that is needed for the Dimcho. This will be the start of our project for 2013.

Working on the Garden Party plans for Sat 6th Oct now

Hi Guys Here is the last updated for 2012 - What a brilliant year we have had! Here is the link so you can see the photos and below is the write up with a photo or two
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Itemid=97



Welcome to the Dimcho Debelianov Orphanage Silistra Bulgaria. We are Berni &
Dougie Leggett UK Organizers

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Well here we are again, another year ends, 2012 has gone by. This year has been wonderful. We have achieved all our goals even though they were meant to carry us over to August 2013. With help from supporters and new sponsors, we were very fortunate to have LWM Consultants Ltd come on board and sponsor our transport. As you can imagine this was our biggest expense. It would normally take us all year to raise the funds to transport the load to Bulgaria but now, LWM Consultants Ltd will sponsor the transport until further notice. Thank you so much. You are just fantastic!

Our achievements so far this year 2012:

1) Thanks to a local company in Silistra who donated the much needed settees to the Dimcho

2) We were in a position to buy all the children new trainers with sponsor’s donations from Michela &
Corrod in Italy, and Nominal Accountants in Burgas Bulgaria. Thank you.

3) We sent 40 children and 12 adults on an all inclusive 2 week holiday thanks to the wonderful donation from the Hotel Delta Beach in Sunny Beach Bulgaria. That was just out of this world and totally an amazing achievement. Thank you so much.

4) Finally we have managed to secure 40 new bunk beds and mattresses for the Dimcho and they will be delivered to the Dimcho before Christmas, what a wonderful Christmas present! Thanks to everyone who sponsored this project.

5) We had knitting projects here in the UK and in Bulgaria – knitters from Dobrich and Silistra area did a fantastic job in knitting various hats, scarves, gloves, baby sets, mittens, booties, snowmen, mini stocking etc and UK knitters did likewise but included 90+ beautiful blankets. What a year! We can hardly believe it ourselves! Special thanks to all our donors/sponsors because without your help we could not have done this.

Purchase of new shoes and the bunk beds project.

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We are delighted to tell you that the Bunk Bed Appeal project has now completed!!!!!!

We now have all the bunk beds sponsored and all the beds will be delivered before Christmas. What a fantastic Christmas Present for the children. Thank you all so much you are all just totally amazing.

Holiday donated from the Hotel Delta Beach Sunny Beach

Here are a few photos of the children on their holidays at Hotel Delta Beach Sunny Beach Bulgaria. I wrote to 100’s of hotels in Bulgaria asking if they would help with a holiday for our children. The Hotel Delta Beach did not hesitate, they replied offering to take all the children and staff for 2 weeks all inclusive – As you can imagine this was just fantastic. We were all over the moon. This has never happened in Bulgaria before. The manager said I inspired them and they decided to invite 3 more orphanages along, so all in all there were over 200 children staying at the hotel. Thank you so much, you did fantastic and brought sheer joy and happiness to all the children with a holiday they will remember for a lifetime.



Our load for 2012

Part of the load 22 pallets of goods we sent to Bulgaria for 4 orphanages, the Home for the Elderly and other organisations for 2012. This is our fifth year of sending goods to the orphanages during that time we have send goods for 9 different orphanages, The disability Centre, the Home for the Elderly, the Hospital, the doctors surgery and 3 villages. We also provided 100’s of filled shoeboxes for 5 orphanages ensuring every child has a box all to themselves to open on Christmas morning. qt7_367x344 qt8_415x305

The Home for the Elderly:

This is our 4th year running whereby we have brought donated goods and distributed them to the residents of the Home for the Elderly. They were overwhelmed with the items. They are in need of knitting wool and good clean winter coats for next year. We will start all the collecting again in Feb 2013

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Donation by British Bulgaria Society

This fantastic camera and accessories were donated to the Dimcho Orphanage thanks to The British Bulgaria Society. This is indeed a wonderful donation and is greatly appreciated, as they can now capture all the brilliant photographs of all the forthcoming events. Thank you so much to Dr Annie Kay and her team.

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We were invited to the British Bulgarian Society 60 Diamond Jubilee at the Bulgarian Embassy in London in Nov. We had a wonderful time. There was singing and dancing and all sorts of events. The London Irish Choir attended along with a host of others. Thanks to the president Dr Annie Kay for inviting us and thanks to Frank O’Reilly for finding us, introducing and for supporting us.

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Berni &
Dougie &
Dr Annie Kay The London Irish Choir

The Silistra Garden Party:

The 4th year Garden Party and again it was a great success thanks to all those wonderful helpers and supports alike. You all did a fantastic Job. Special thanks to our photographer Bryan who flew from the UK to be with us and took some wonderful photos, you will find a few here and the rest on the website gallery link.

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We had a good turnout considering we were much later in the month and the holiday season was almost to an end however, we still raised a fantastic amount of funds from all the items for sale. Plus earlier in the year Joanne, Nigel, Irene &
Dave did a fundraiser via the ‘Secret Garden Tea Room’. They did high teas and raised 641lev a fantastic amount. Thank you all, you did great!. They also did a Xmas Fayre fundraiser on Nov 24th in Pomoshtitsa nr Popovo, again they raised 690lev which they will forward this week. Thanks to Graham Moffet who donated the Lionsgate Guest House premises in Pomoshtitsa for their venue. Well done Graham! They are now on their 3rd event which will be on Dec 16th at Tserova Koriya, Tirnovo. Again they will make another donation to the Silistra Orphanage, which we will use to purchase all the under storage plastic boxes with wheels. Thanks a million times over for your ongoing support guys. You did fantastic!

Christine &
Lester Griffin in Bulgaria have been doing bootsales and knitting throughout the year. They raised over 1000lev, which is just an amazing amount. Lester and our friend Hugh here in the UK made 2 set of stocks for us and Lester manned them throughout the day at the Garden Party – The children had not seen anything like this before and loved them. Thank you so much, you are all wonderful. Special thanks to all our helpers Sue and Dave, Sue &
Arthur, Ade, Margaret, Christine &
Lester, Nellie and the girls from the 365 Volunteer Club, Joanne and Nigel, Bill &
Sue and especially the director Stilian, all the children and the staff at the Dimcho, who once again, did a fantastic job. They all pulled together and filled in where we needed them. Thanks to the City Mayor of Silistra who sent the group of children and the musician to entertain us. They were amazing. Thank you also to GURB for their DJ, Mendes Radio for the interviews and the Bulgarian National Television for great filming once again, the City Mayor and our local Mayor and members of Parliament for attending. We could not have done this without all our volunteers, thank you all very much, you are an amazing group of people.

We had some wonderful stalls at the Garden Party and some fantastic raffle and auction prizes – everyone had a great time. We had Ivelina and Christian from BNTV who filmed The Dimcho Garden Party and interview many of our guests. They also filmed us and our 3rd Orphanage in Silistra Malek Preslavetz. There are 16 children there and this is our 2nd year of bringing them goods. We brought 40 large boxes containing clothes, shoes, toys, trampoline, swimming pool, 2 bikes, 20 hand knitted blankets and most important the Christmas Shoeboxes. We are hoping that the TV publicity will bring more help and awareness to the orphanages in Bulgaria so fingers crossed.

Thank to ‘Pescott’s Foods’ for donating the massive amount of burgers and sausages for the BBQ, they were great. Kevin and Bev also drove the 5 hours to be with us. Thanks a million to Bev for spending her afternoon helping our staff to cook them. Here is a report from one of our guests Mick ‘At lunchtime, we were supplied with a bbq style meal and once again, hats off to everybody involved in the food. The burgers and sausages (some said were deer, some said ostrich) - whichever, they were bloomin tasty!!!! Big round of applause as I say, the food was excellent and the staff the same’ Thanks Kevin for you support again this year. It was a pleasure to meet you both.

As you know one of our projects was to raise funds for bunk beds for the Dimcho – This was a project we hoped to complete by August 2013 however, due to the support we have had from the Garden Party, the fantastic people on the Facebook Sunny Beach Group, The Secret Tea Room, LaPa Bar and various supporters like Steve W. Sara Cowin, Christine and Lester and Ellen and Martha Ladd 2 wonderful girls age 9 and 12, who donated their own funds to buy a bed. Our friends in Belgium their 11 year old daughter Tyra Derdin also bought a bed and early in the year Tyra and her mum flew from Belgium with two large bags of goodies for the children in Silisitra. This is amazing and if we carry on like this we will be able to have the beds by Christmas. We have a few more bag packing sessions and a booksale at my place of work who have been very supportive to us.

Thanks to everyone Chris and Bill for all their hard work on the website and helping with all sorts of tech stuff throughout the year they have both been just amazing. I do keep them busy!

Also special thanks to all our knitted in BG ladies in and in the UK for the 100’s of items you knitted. You all did a brilliant job!! Jean Marriott, June Pat from Newark, Dorothy, Kate and all the ladies in Stamford have already knitted over 200 blankets for our three existing orphanages in Silistra, Jean Marriott from Newark have already started for the next organisation The Disability Day Centre. They did 20 for the Malek Preslavetz and 80+ for the Baby/Medical centre Orphanage. They are just beautiful well done! Ladies you did great.

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How you can help:

Our cause is not about money, although we do have to fundraise if we need something in particular such as the 40 new bunk beds etc. Our main concerns are to ensure the children have the necessities such as new or good clean clothing, jackets, coats shoes, socks, trainers, underwear, towels, toiletries, toys, and stationery. We also need items to fill 100’s of shoeboxes. We are only two people and we do all the collecting, sorting, washing, packing labelling etc ourselves. We have help from our sponsors PC Howard Ltd staff with palleting and loading. Then in Bulgaria the Director, staff and older children unload and store until we get there and then we distribute the 400 + large boxes of goods. If you can help, please let us know. Thank you so much, we really appreciate your support.

Projects for 2013

Project 1 new cycles (bike's) for the Dimcho

We are hoping to be able to obtain bikes for all the children in the Dimcho next year. This is yet another big task for us. I will endeavour to write to all the big cycling companies in the UK and Bulgaria and see if any of them can help. Therefore, if you know of anyone who can help us in any way, please do let us know on email [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] or perhaps you can help with any item from age 0 to 18 years, or perhaps help us with the odd printing of newsletter or updates, or even supplying us with parcel tape or transporting additional goods over to Bulgaria, I was recently offered 6 x 2 seater settees, which I had to turn down due to not being able to transport them. This is a real shame as we could use them for the new build project for the older children next year.

Project no 2 possible Fashion Show

I have been hankering for a few years now, to do a fashion show at the Dimcho. I know there is a college in Silistra, I just need to find it and ask if they would design a range of clothing for us. We also need local business’s to participate with either donated clothing for the show or display their own goods and donate a commission to us on the day for goods sold. We ourselves, need new clothing to sell at the show too, so if you can help, again please do let us know.

Project no 3

We are in need of outside seating benches at the Dimcho as the few they have are falling apart. We will look to obtain 6, possibly 8 for around the grounds. They will be beneficial to the Garden Party event also. Other ideal item would be long fold up tables.

Thanks to you all:

Recap: for 2012

We were donated all new settees from a local businessman in Silistra

We bought new trainers for all the children in May 2012

We sent the children on an all inclusive holiday to Sunny Beach

We fundraised for 40 new bunk beds

Plus we had all new clothing from Gap and Next and lots of item from our supporters

We did 100’s of shoeboxes for 3 orphanages plus large toy boxes for the baby orphanage

We have new sponsors LWM Consultants who donated the transport costs

All in all we have had a fantastic year thanks to The Hotel Delta Beach who has given the children a holiday of a lifetime and our supporters have given them yet another dream, new bunk beds. Thanks to PC Howard Ltd our storage company, Tee Kay Packaging Ltd who supply our boxes and LWM Consultants who sponsor our transport and to Delamode Ltd who do the transport at cost price and to Ourbulgariaforum.com for their support. All our sponsors are amazing and have all agreed to sponsors us again next year, this is just brilliant! Thanks to Toshivo Book Club run by our friends Bill &
Sue. Also thanks to all our sponsors listed on our sponsor page on the website. Thanks to our wonderful sponsor’s ‘GAP’ who has been brilliant and always exceed our expectations. They have continued to support us for the past 3 years now. Thanks to ‘NEXT’ who has also been fantastic and very supportive to us. They are both always ready to help. Tesco has also donated some clothing for next year and will continue to support us. Thanks to my work for allowing us to do booksales. Rainbow Store for allowing us to bag pack. Our volunteers, knitters helpers, fundraisers, Guides, Rainbow, brownie groups everyone, there are so many people to say thanks to that it would take me a week to sort them out, but you know who you all are and we would like to say a MASSIVE THANK YOU to all you wonderful people who have helped us again this year, you have all been just brilliant in supporting our cause any way you can. You are ALL just amazing people and we are very proud to know you and have you on our side. Also a great big thanks to Bill and Chris for all the work they do on the website

Berni &
Dougie xx

Thank you for the update Berni and as always you seem to be doing so well but don't forget to spend some time with yourself.

Nice read as always from you dear lady. You do amaze me with all you do and I'm sure other will join me with......

Hi Berni, I’ve been invited to talk about my writing on BBC Radio Lincolnshire at 10.00 on Wednesday the 30 Jan 2013. If I can, I’ll talk about the Pillars of Strength book that I collated for the orphanage.

John

silky4015 wrote:

Hi Berni, I’ve been invited to talk about my writing on BBC Radio Lincolnshire at 10.00 on Wednesday the 30 Jan 2013. If I can, I’ll talk about the Pillars of Strength book that I collated for the orphanage.

John

Well done John congratulations and well done!!!! Yes, that would be great!! It might bring awareness to our cause too - maybe if they ask point out we are not about money, only everyday goods.

Good luck you might get a recording of it too.

Berni xx

That's all great news Berni and a credit to you, love the photos. One thing does puzzle me is how do you find the time and energy to do all this and run your family home at the same time? I struggle to to do the polishing at home and thats when I'm told to by the boss [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The newsletter for 2013 March

If anybody would like to download all four pages contained in one PDF document, please click this link:

[url:2gpss9l3]http:
//www.
tonicwebworks.
com/spring2013newsletter.
pdf[/url:2gpss9l3]

Hi Guys

Here is the Bulgarian Orphanage Appeal Silistra Summer Newsletter 2015   so much  

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Spring/Summer Newsletter 2016

Here we are in September already we delivered our lorry load of 4 pallets and storage in our village hall in Bulgaria in April. We have difficulty in distributing the items as our entire organisation appears to have sufficient. The hospital will not accept second hand crutches, walking frames etc so had to enlist the help of Social Services to advise where items are mostly needed We also add 38 boxes/packages of our own personal items.Also an air con unit from Diane Dirdin. Most of these items will go to Aydimir home for adults with disabilities.

6th July 2016 The (Obstina government office) of Social Services instructed the Mayor of йорданово (Yordanovo) to collect some of the items. We gave them 17 boxes/bags in total to include 8 bags of knitted items from Knit for Peace, new sofa covers, some of our own personal donations, items to including sleeping bags and clothes kitchen items etc. They were very pleased indeed.
Easter and the Chicks
I spent the winter months knitting little chick as did my lovely neighbour Yvanka, then Suzanna and her mum from the UK knitted some and filled with choc mini eggs. Our followers donated Cadbury’s mini eggs and Emma Hibbins donated a carrier bag of sweets. Easter Yvanka and I filled the chicks with eggs and sweets for each establishment and arranged in baskets, then delivered them in time for Easter but unfortunately there were no photos of distributing, but the children loved them.
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The Disability Home Aydimir
We visited the disability home in July and they are in need of various items, but nothing major as it is a lovely well equipt home and as it happens this was the main place we had collected mostly for this year. We sent them 18+boxes of clothes, shoes, jigsaws, toys, games and other boxes mostly from ourselves of various items such as linen, quilts, towels, china, cutlery kitchen items, electric mini hob humidifier. Also a portable air condition unit, crutches, garden hoover and a Wii and games from Joanne S Smith, sacks of hand knitted items hats scarves, gloves jumpers, socks, blankets from Knit for Peace and an Ikea lamp etc.They were very pleased and will make use of all these item.
Donations to the Disability Day Centre Silistra April 2015
We were very fortunate this year as Mrs Janice Falconer a lovely English lady living in Tutracan in Bulgaria donated a massage table and around 30 lovingly handmade towels for every occasion. Thank you Janice the director, staff and the patients are delighted with your wonderful donation. We also gave them a variety of crutches donated from Mr John Winn in the UK again thank you John they are very useful indeed. Thank you all so much for all your donations to all our establishments, you are all such wonderful people and we could not do this without your help
Malak Preslavets Orphanage
We have a small delivery this year for them as they need very little however, Jill Webb from Hull Church community has come forward again this year and asked what they can buy for the children of Malak Preslavets. Jill will come over to Bulgaria next week and bring the raised funds with her so she can buy what is needed for them here, The director said they need a washing machine so with the funds from Hull Church and the donation British Bulgarian Society made last year we should be able to get them a good quality washing machine.

The Dimcho Update
Sadly our beloved Dimcho Debelinavo Orphanage closed on 1st July 2016 and the children were moved to a new small home near the Danube. The new home is an apartment. It is very nice and comfortable. It has 3 large bedrooms, a large kitchen and living room and two shower rooms/toilets. The balcony is closed in so it is used as an office for the director Stilian , we are all very pleased Stilian is still the director. It is totally different from the Dimcho but has room for up to 10 children and they are adapting very nicely.
Social Services have made big changes in Bulgaria over the past two years. They announced in 2015 that by end of 2016 all the big institutions would be closed and smaller home would be available for the children. We no longer have orphanages now in Silistra as the children have either been adopted, fostered or those that have family have been returned to them and the rest have gone to the new homes. We now have 5 new homes that accommodate up to 12 or 15 children at a time.This is great news as the children are in a home environment atmosphere rather than an institution.
Tinassay new apartment for the Dimcho children
Mrs Helen Wilson has supported us again this year and donated a new kitchen to the (Ten Is Say) the new home for the children from the Dimcho. (SecParts Ltd (Kalipetrova) donated a new boiler and sink unit for the kitchen. You guys are just wonderful. Thanks you so much. Helen has been fantastic, last year she bought wardrobes and large storage shelving units for Malak Preslavets children and now the Kitchen for Tenisay. SecPart Ltd both directors are very nice people, they have always come forward to help when needed. Thank you guys you are just amazing. Dougie spent two days putting the kitchen together and then fitting this lovely kitchen, he had help from three of the young boys, Krassi, Ivan and Christo who were over the moon and learned a lot. They love learning new things.
Thank You All
Special thanks to Nominal Accounts Borislav Sirvio who has been sponsors for the past 5 years. Borislav is just wonderful. Nominal’s donation goes towards something the children need. Later in the year they will need winter shoes/coats so it is likely the funds will be used then or before if they need something urgently. Naturally the photos will be updated Christine and Lester Griffin also donate funds on a yearly basis that they have raised via a boot sale in Dobrich. They collect items from friends, family and of course we usually provide them with the boxes of items left over from the Garden Party. They then donate the funds at our annual Garden Party but last year 2015 they donated their funds directly to the director of the Dimcho as we did not have a Garden Party. The Children from Silistra have had a week’s holiday at the Black Sea and they had a fantastic time and it’s all thanks to Christine & Lester’s hard work raising funds, you guys are just fantastic! Thank you a million times over. They children would not have had a holiday this year without your support. Thank to everyone in BG and the UK who donated items for sale to Christine & Lester and making it possible for the children to have a holiday. You did great!
Our Website has closed
As you know we have had some big changes in Social Services here with the orphanages/disability homes etc in Bulgaria including our beloved Dimcho Debelianov which the website was named after but that has now closed therefore, the web designer Chris, the web manager Bill and ourselves, have decided that it is time to move on and close the site.
We thought about renaming and transferring everything to a new host but that would be costly and we would have to start all over again. Therefore, closing it down is the best option for us right now. We will still have this Facebook page. A massive big THANK YOU to Bill and Chris you guys are just amazing always there for us no matter what we need. Thank you for the time and all the effort you put into building, designing and managing the website over the years, you did great and it has been a great source of information for everyone. Well done!
We have come a very long way in the past 8 years and we are very proud of what we have achieved and it's all thanks to you guys our followers, our sponsors, various groups, our web designer Chris web manager Bill web manager, our accountant Margaret, PC Howards Ltd, Tee Kay Packaging, family and friends all over, you have all been amazing over the past 8 years supporting us in different ways and always there to support our cause. We are very grateful indeed and you have made such a difference to the lives of the children/adults here in BG Thank you! We set out to give the children of BG the simple basic qualities to improve their lives and we have exceeded this over and over in many ways. They are all now part of their communities and no longer outcasts.
We all did great! Thank you all.
Berni & Dougie
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