“With a Warm Heart”

Ihor Bardyn, Toronto, Canada

 “I am pleased to be able to make these donations with a warm heart and not cold hands”, are the words spoken by the Hon. John Yaremko on a sunny March day at West Park Health Centre in Toronto.

 The community representatives who came to share tea and chocolate cake with the first Ukrainian-Canadian elected to the Ontario Legislature, represented the “Ukrainian Art Song Project” of the Canadian Ukrainian Opera Association of Toronto, the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Internship Program for university students from Ukraine, and the Katedra Foundation’s John and Myroslava Yaremko Canada-Ukraine Lectureship at Ukraine’s universities.

John and his late wife Myroslava embarked on a philanthropic path shortly after his retirement from the Legislature in 1975. In the process, they made important and substantial gifts to Roy Thomson Hall, the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canadian Opera Company, the John and Myroslava Yaremko Forest on the Niagara Escarpment, Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko in Winnipeg, Bellwoods Centre for Community Living in Toronto, and the Royal Ontario Museum.

More recently with an endowment of $600,000, the annual John and Mary Yaremko Lecture on Multiculturalism and Human Rights was established at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. In February of this year, to meet the needs of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Toronto, the St. Volodymyr Foundation of Toronto received a gift of $215,000, while the Yaremko’s Georgian style home was gifted to St. Volodymyr Cathedral to serve as a parish residence. On April 3, 2008, John Yaremko made an important pledge of $50,000 to the John P. Robarts Library at the University of Toronto, to preserve and make broadly accessible retrospective library materials relating to Ukrainian history, literature language and culture through digitization.

The John and Myroslava Yaremko Canada-Ukraine Lectureship in Ukraine was initiated in the Fall 2007 academic term at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy by Stephen

Velychenko, where he taught in the Political Science Department. Dr. Velychenko is a Fellow of the Chair of Ukrainian Studies and Research Associate at the Munk Centre, University of Toronto. This visiting lectureship, generously funded by John Yaremko, will allow Canadian Academics to teach non-Ukrainian subjects, in English where possible, at Ukrainian universities. It is intended to give Ukrainian students knowledge of Canadian studies and to generate greater cooperation between Canada and Ukraine on educational issues. Professor Natalia Atamanenko, head of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy Political Science Department expressed her satisfaction with Dr. Velychenko’s course at NaUKMA. She is pleased that it can be given again, and that the program of which it is a part of will be expanded thanks to the generous gift of John Yaremko.

The Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Internship Program for university students from Ukraine received a donation of $100,000. The 2007 John and Myroslava Yaremko Scholarship recipient was Oksana Kleutina, a student at the National Aviation University of Kyiv. Ms. Kleutina on receiving the news in Kyiv said “I am honoured to be the 2007 John & Myroslava Yaremko Scholarship recipient … During my [Canadian parliamentary] internship, I researched Mr. Yaremko’s history as Cabinet Minister in the Ontario government. Mr. Yaremko’s vision and dedication to Ukraine, to his home province of Ontario and his support for multiculturalism and the multicultural communities of Hungarian, Italian, Baltic, and Ukrainian Canadians is unparalleled. I will forever be honoured to have received the Yaremko Scholarship. During my internship in the House of Commons, I discovered that Mr. Yaremko received The Officer’s Cross of the Order of Hungary, the highest award that a non-Hungarian can receive from the Republic of Hungary”.

The Ukrainian Art Song Project received an initial donation of $25,000. The Art Song Project’s goal is to leave a legacy of masterfully written Ukrainian art songs that have never been heard before. Composers such as Mykola Lysenko, Kyrylo Stetsenko, Yakiv Stepoviy and Borys Lyatoshynskiy are among the masters who wrote in this particular genre and whose works will be represented in this comprehensive anthology. Opera Star Pavlo Hunka accepted the initial donation of $25,000 for the Art Song Project.   He said, “Mr. Yaremko, your generosity has helped the Ukrainian Art Song Project take a giant step forward and come closer to our goal of releasing the complete art songs of Mykola Lysenko in 2009. Lysenko composed six hours of exquisite music which is now coming to the attention of the classical world. As a composer of art songs, he is at last taking his rightful place alongside other great composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Ravel. “

Mr. Hunka went on to explain that the works are already digitized and will soon be published on the Ukrainian Art Song Project website: www.uasp.ca. “Anyone, anywhere in the world will be able to download the score vf any of the art songs, at no cost and in any key they desire. Thus, we will be creating a world library of Ukrainian classical gems. “

The philanthropic activity of John Yaremko and his late wife Myroslava will leave a legacy of great importance to the arts, community living, civil society and education both in Canada and Ukraine.

In making gifts “with a warm heart” John Yaremko has let it be known that his wish is to benefit worthy projects and organizations during his lifetime.

PHOTO

John Yaremko (sitting). First row (L. to R.): Laryssa Hunka, Rose Sametz, Lucia Hicks, Ihor Bardyn. Second row (L. to R.): Wiiliam Sametz, William Zyla, Pavlo Hunka, Oleksandr Hordienko