How a tractor makes Christmas a celebration:

The Kinderzukunft Foundation Christmas Campaign 2026

“For us, these aren’t just presents — it’s the feel­ing that we’re not alone and that people are think­ing of our chil­dren. Your thought­ful­ness and support have brought joy to the chil­dren and given me strength and faith in the good­ness of the world.” Swit­lana, a single moth­er of three chil­dren from Katschaly in the Kyiv region

Bring­ing joy, espe­cial­ly at Christ­mas, is a wonder­ful thing. Because you’re also giving a gift to your­self. We at Valdivia have known this feel­ing for five years now: the prepa­ra­tion, the wrap­ping, hand­ing the parcel in at the collec­tion point – always accom­pa­nied by the thought of a child open­ing the parcel with eyes aglow. All too often, it is the only Christ­mas joy they will expe­ri­ence. As was the case, for exam­ple, with Tymoshko when he received his tractor …

Tymoschko and the tractor

It was a harsh winter of 2025/2026 in Stara Burda, a village near Kyiv – the third now in this cruel war. There were frequent power cuts. The sirens would wail, most­ly at night, and time and again parents had to pull their chil­dren out of their warm beds and take them to the shel­ters. Then the ground would shake from the impacts of Russ­ian drones and missiles, often for hours on end.

Tymoschko is only five years old … and has already had his share of sad expe­ri­ences of this war. He and his siblings have known noth­ing else. Only their moth­er, Uljana, can offer them comfort and support. She is always there for them all. She comforts them, listens to them, and holds them close. This sense of secu­ri­ty with­in the fami­ly has helped Tymoschko retain his care­free, child­like enthu­si­asm for the world despite all the adver­si­ty and – like many boys in his rural region – his inter­est in machin­ery: trac­tors, combine harvesters – in short, anything with wheels and an engine. All autumn long, he told his moth­er about the trac­tor he was dream­ing of for Christ­mas: big, green and ‘just like a real one’. Uljana often listened to him with a smile, but she knew that in a fami­ly rais­ing sever­al chil­dren in the midst of a war, there is rarely any money left over for such presents.

But then Christ­mas came. And amidst the wail of sirens, air raids and cold evenings with­out elec­tric­i­ty, a large card­board box was deliv­ered to the house. As if some­one from afar were saying: despite every­thing, child­hood must go on.

Uljana described to us, in all its poignan­cy, the moment when Tymoschko opened the box: his hands shot up to his head, his mouth opened in a silent ‘Oh’, and his eyes – huge, incred­u­lous and happy – couldn’t tear them­selves away from the green trac­tor with the yellow wheels. Uljana laughed and cried at the same time with joy. In that instant, war and winter seemed to fade away for a moment, and there was only one thing: Tymoschko and his trac­tor from the Christ­mas parcel.

Today, the trac­tor is almost a member of the fami­ly. Tymoschko takes it every­where with him. Time and again, he shows his siblings how a trac­tor like this works, and handles it like an expe­ri­enced farmer.

Get involved: many ways to bring joy

It doesn’t always have to be a big trac­tor. Christ­mas parcels can contain all sorts of things that bring joy or are simply urgent­ly need­ed. You can find an overview with all the infor­ma­tion on the Kinderzukun­ft Foundation’s annu­al Christ­mas parcel campaign on the campaign page, and details of possi­ble contents in the FAQs.

Compa­nies, clubs and school class­es can also get involved. And not just by send­ing indi­vid­ual parcels:

• You can regis­ter a collec­tion point.
• You can reach out to rela­tives, friends, acquain­tances, club members or work colleagues and tell them about the campaign.
• You can down­load and distrib­ute promo­tion­al mate­ri­als from the campaign page.
• You can follow and share the Kinderzukun­ft Foundation’s social media posts on Face­book, YouTube, Insta­gram and LinkedIn.
• You can support the trans­port of the Christ­mas parcels with a dona­tion of €4 per parcel (details of the dona­tion account are at the end of this post).

Spread­ing joy: key dates

• Collec­tion of parcels: 23 Octo­ber to 23 Novem­ber 2026
• Collec­tion from collec­tion points: 25 Novem­ber to 11 Decem­ber 2026

Because it means so much more 

How much a gift means depends very much on the circum­stances. What is easi­ly lost amidst abun­dance in a pros­per­ous envi­ron­ment can have a complete­ly differ­ent signif­i­cance for a child in Ukraine, Roma­nia or Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina . The Christ­mas parcels distrib­uted by the Kinderzukun­ft Foun­da­tion are there­fore more than just objects:

“This parcel distri­b­u­tion once again high­light­ed just how impor­tant it is for chil­dren to feel that adults are paying atten­tion to them, show­ing them warmth and taking a genuine inter­est in them. Even a small gift, accom­pa­nied by live­ly inter­ac­tion, can become a power­ful source of support and hope.” Iryna, psychol­o­gist at the Kyiv Samar­i­tan Association

Kinderzukun­ft Foundation

Rabenaus­traße 1a, D‑63584 Gründau

Vera Berd­ing

Head of Market­ing and Public Rela­tions, Member of the Exec­u­tive Board

Tel.: +49 60 51 48 18 16

Fax: +49 60 51 48 18 10

Email: vera.berding@kinderzukunft.de

Website: www.kinderzukunft.de

Dona­tion account: Commerzbank Hanau

IBAN: DE79 5064 0015 0222 2222 00

BIC: COBADEFFXXX

Please state ‘Valdivia Zukun­ft’ in the payment reference.

(Image source: Stiftung Kinderzukunft)