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Ellie Dickerson, Upper Darby Pioneer Partner and External Media Chair says for the past several years, children from Belarus have been traveling to the United States to spend the summer away from their homeland, away from the very ground that has been contaminated to this day with radiation from a nuclear reactor accident in the Soviet Union.

As you may remember, in April 1986, the Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear reactor accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union. It was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history, resulting in a severe release of radioactivity into the environment following a massive power excursion which destroyed the reactor. Two people died in the initial steam explosion, but most deaths from the accident were attributed to fallout.
On 8/21/08, 34 of these children boarded buses in the Philadelphia area that carried them to Newark, NJ  where they would get on planes to carry them home. The Upper Darby Council presented these youngsters with their very own heart pillows(for the girls) and hug-a-bears (for the boys) so they could snuggle up with them on the long trip home. For every month these youngsters spend here it adds 3 years to their lives. They have lost many family members to radiation cancers as a result of the fallout. It make us proud that we could help in our small way to enrich their lives. Indeed, "we are answering the call of those in need" and it now reaches across the sea.