To someone suffering from radiation sickness, cigarette smoke in public parks probably doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But then, perhaps it’s our concern for public health that attracts visitors from the former USSR to Petaluma. Melissa Hatheway, a mother of four who has hosted participants in the Chernobyl Children’s Project, explains that six weeks in a clean environment goes a long way toward ridding the body of lingering toxins from the nuclear fallout.
The children who arrive in Petaluma every summer from the nuclear reactor’s vicinity in Russia range in age from 8 to 18; the incident occurred 23 years ago. Considered the greatest disaster in the history of mankind, the explosion at the reactor site released one hundred times more radiation than the atom bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Children continue to absorb radiation from the soil, milk and food; they have high rates of thyroid cancer. Extreme poverty prevents residents of the area from relocating to healthier environs. The Chernobyl Children’s Project strives to send children from the affected area to recuperative locations around the world.
A prodigious quilter, Melissa put together this quilt from Chernobyl Children’s art. The 18 youngsters from Belarus who visited Petaluma last year painted the pictures, which were scanned and printed onto fabric. Melissa combined the art with “save the planet” fabric to create a fundraising quilt for CCP. The quilt will be raffled or auctioned at the organization’s fundraiser in September at Sally Tomatoes Event Center in Rohnert Park.
This week, six children from the Ukraine will arrive to spend the summer in Petaluma. Last year’s debacle in which a Belarusian girl refused to return home accounts in part for the decline in number; another factor is the economy. The costs of airfare, medical care, and homestays are high. For more information about the Chernobyl Children’s Project, visit its website: http://www.chernobylkids.com/.
