Since the Children’s Holiday Smile campaign began in 2014, the Polish-American community in New York, New Jersey, and the Chicago area has contributed a total of $500,000 to children’s hospices in Poland and needy sick children in the United States.

During this year’s fundraiser, PSFCU members donated money to three children’s hospices in Poland, and all the funds went to the bank accounts of those institutions, because the PSFCU does not charge any fees for the collection or transfer of funds. Therefore, the Silesian Children’s Hospice Foundation for Children in Tychy (the institution recommended by Poland’s First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda) will receive $22,030. The Little Prince Children’s Hospice in Lublin, the only home-care and inpatient hospice for children in southeast Poland will get $37,857, while the Warsaw Children’s Hospice Foundation will receive $20,566. The amount of $24,113 will go to the account of the Children’s Smile Foundation to help sick Polish-American children.

This was the fourth edition of the joint campaign by the Polish & Slavic Federal Credit Union and New York’s Children’s Smile Foundation. The amount of funds raised since 2014 has now exceeded half a million dollars. “It has become a pre-Christmas tradition for our Credit Union members to show their compassion and willingness to share with those in need. What pleases me the most is that the fundraiser is now a permanent item on the calendar of Polish community events, and during these four years we have been successful in collecting half a million dollars for seriously ill children,” said PSFCU Chief Executive Officer Bogdan Chmielewski.