Daycare raises money for Ukrainian children

By Tracye Hutchins

Click here for updates on this story

    ATLANTA, Georgia (WGCL) — By some estimates, more than half of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been displaced by Russia’s invasion.

Now, a Fulton County daycare is raising thousands of dollars to make sure they won’t miss out on their education or necessities.

Irina Bhatia owns the Primrose School of Alpharetta. She says she isn’t just concerned about Ukrainian children’s safety, but how much education they’re missing out on.

Bhatia tells CBS46, “I am Ukrainian born and raised. The struggle of the Ukrainian community and nation has been very close to me. My whole family is still in Kyiv in Ukraine.”

Bhatia says her Primrose families reached out to her shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine asking how they could help.

“The children have been misplaced. They’ve lost everything they’ve known, they’ve lost access to education, to their toys to their families, many have lost their homes,” Bhatia says.

While banners and signs can be seen throughout her Primrose School halls showing support from students, their families have been stepping up with donations. Those donations will go directly to the humanitarian organization Save The Children.

Bhatia says, “at this point, we have collected more than $7,000 from our families for donations and we have matched them, so we are now at over $14,000 of total donations.”

Bhatia and her husband are the ones matching the funds. She tells CBS46 that all that money has been raised in just the last five weeks and the fundraising effort is still going strong.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.