local
KleinLife Throws New Year’s Party
for Ukrainian Refugees
Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
Courtesy of KleinLife
B etween 6,000 and 10,000 refugees from the
war in Ukraine have resettled in Northeast
Philadelphia since the confl ict started in
February, according to KleinLife President and CEO
Andre Krug. Many are children who, after leaving
their country of birth and early life with no advance
warning, lost their sense of normalcy in a new land.

So on Dec. 28, KleinLife tried to give it back to
them for a couple of hours.

From 4-6 p.m., Krug and his team threw a New
Year’s party for “Ukrainian refugee children and their
families,” according to a news release. There were
games, holiday treats, gifts, singers, arts and crafts,
cookies and more. Between 75 and 100 children
attended. Each one left with a $50 gift card to Target.

“What we wanted to do is to give children kind of
a festive atmosphere,” Krug said. “It’s probably the
most important part of this. Give them back their
childhood.” Ukrainian refugees have resettled in Northeast
Philadelphia because many existing residents speak
Russian like they do, according to the CEO. They
started arriving in April and May, shortly after Russia’s
late February invasion of Ukraine, and “asking for all
kinds of help,” Krug said. The community center,
which is “inspired by Jewish values,” according to its
website, decided to step up and off er that assistance
to a group of mostly non-Jews.

Krug is from the Eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv,
and his neighborhood was destroyed in the war.

So he said he feels “very passionate about this
issue.” And his staff does, too, as most of them are
immigrants as well. Helping refugees also is in line
with those Jewish values that KleinLife is inspired by,
Krug said.

“The strangers came to our neighborhood, and we
welcomed them,” he said. “We’re just trying to help.”
And they are helping.

In the summer, KleinLife took more than 50
Ukrainian children into a free camp program. When
the school year began in the fall, the community
center started an after-school program for refugee
kids, also free of charge. Most of the adults are
mothers since fathers are fi ghting in the war, so
KleinLife has off ered English as a second language
classes and assistance with documents for school
registration and work authorization. It also has
connected them to the Jewish Federation of Greater
Ukrainian refugees got presents at KleinLife’s New Year’s party on Dec. 28.

Philadelphia’s food pantry and to
a dental offi ce on campus run
by Temple University’s School of
Dentistry. The dental care is free
as well.

To pay for those services,
KleinLife is raising money
“constantly,” the CEO said. It is
writing grants, asking the Jewish
Federation for help and mobilizing
volunteers. The Jewish Federation
helped cover the cost of the
The New Year’s party at KleinLife in Northeast Philadelphia on
summer camp and volunteers
Dec. 28
gathered the Target gift cards for
they come from 30 or 40 diff erent countries.

the New Year’s party.

Krug expects working with immigrants to become
There is no fi nancial planning involved here. Krug
said the community center’s approach is that it will an even bigger part of what the community center
does moving forward. It’s helpful for the refugees
provide the service and the money will appear.

“These people didn’t choose to leave. It just to fi nd so many services in one place, he explained.

There are some Jews in these groups, but not too
happened. When the bomb hits your house, you
sometimes don’t have any choice anymore,” Krug many. Nonetheless, Krug does not plan on chang-
added. “It’s been an uneasy process for most of ing the institution’s identity as one that is rooted in
them because it’s not like they were getting ready for Jewish values. He said that welcoming the stranger
is an American value, too.

years or even months to come here.”
“What we’re also trying to show is this is what
KleinLife’s new mission is not that diff erent from the
one it had started to undertake before the war. The this country is all about. This is a country of
immigrant population in the Northeast continues to immigrants,” Krug said. “It behooves us to help
grow by “leaps and bounds,” according to Krug. First- these immigrants.” ■
generation immigrants now make up between 30-40%
of the population in zip codes that KleinLife serves. And jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 7