When I asked for help raising $5,000 for the last Bishop Maginn High School Prom (they are closing in June for those who missed the announcement here), the scope of the violence, bloodshed, and war crimes in Ukraine was not clear yet evident.

Soon after, I wondered if people in the Army Of Good would send their hard-earned donations to the Ukraine, which is honorable and understandable, instead. We got very few gifts in the mail the first few days.

I received about $700 in small donations via Paypal and Venmo.

The money I’m getting goes to the prom fund. So make those tax-deductible donations arriving at Bishop Maginn in the mail. I don’t know how many there are or how much money was raised. I’ll find out next week.

For the first time in Army of Good history, I didn’t get what I wanted right away. It made me grateful for the past few years.

Some thoughtful and reasonable people wrote to me saying they were sending money to Ukraine instead.

That makes perfect sense to me.

Some suggested the refugee students didn’t need a $5,000 prom. That didn’t make as much sense to me.

But I have never applied pressure to anyone to give to any cause or issue they weren’t comfortable with. There is no right and wrong; we each follow our path. We are a volunteer army; there is no arm-twisting or guilt-tripping.

The letters were civil and thoughtful. This is not something I will argue or complain about.

I want to make my position clear for anyone who wants to know what it is.

This message below represents the three or four people who contacted me about the prom fund-raising. They have a right to be heard.

“Jon, I love and appreciate all you do for the Mansion residents and the Bishop Maginn kids. I can’t support spending $5,000 on a prom even if the horrors in Ukraine were not happening. Proms don’t require private venues or special DJs. Our high school proms were in our gym, and the most fun part was making our decorations out of recycled materials. It was the spirit of our classmates that made it special.”

The message was honest and thoughtful, and I have no arguments about it.

My own decision is different. The students do want private venues and special DJs, just like most American seniors. And they are entitled to that.

I don’t feel we can stop helping the refugee children get their wish because there is another awful spot in the world.

Several refugee students pointed out that people in their own country of Myanmar have been slaughtered, tortured, imprisoned, and driven out of the country by a vicious military coup that is hunting and killing thousands of innocent people even as we speak.

Few people in America, they point out, are upset about it or are sending massive amounts of weapons to the rebels fighting the murderers in the Army or closing down their companies to protest the slaughter.

There are war crimes and genocide there, too; there have been for years. Schools here still have their proms.

Many refugee students have seen war, torture, murder, rape, and genocide up close, and wanton killing in their towns and village for years. Many have spent much of their childhood in refugee camps. Their childhoods were stolen from them, over and over again.

Bishop Maginn is vital to them.

The school took them in, taught them English, helped them to learn and feel safe for the first time in their lives.

They don’t insist that their prom needs to be a $5,000 project; that was my idea.

I’m sticking to it, although we can certainly do well with less.

On top of their earlier suffering, these often traumatized children – many have lost relatives and friends to the genocide and their homes – have lost years of education, including the last two, due to the pandemic. Many have families in hiding or who have disappeared.

Until we purchased laptops for them, few of them had computers at home and, with their language difficulties, lost ground during Covid-19. Their families are poor; they sleep on living room floors together to save on heating oil.

Since Covid-19 came, they had no everyday social or academic life that was most important to them. They could not see their friends or teachers. They had a hard time.

Just as the pandemic receives, they are also losing their school.

They will be fine, but it is a severe blow to them, another loss.

The school was their home away from home—their safe place.

It was where they hung out all summer if they couldn’t find jobs. T was where they came with their little sisters and brothers to babysit them after school, work on their art, or get something healthy to eat.

It was where they came to plant vegetables for other refugee families, lean on Sue Silverstein to listen to them and help them, where they came to cry when they were sad or got horrible messages from home, where they filled out their college applications and got some help.

It was where they learned in safety and by loving people for the first time in their lives. hey made close friends with students and teachers they will soon be separated from.

And where they became beautiful young people, educated, community-minded, warm sand empathetic,  ambitious young patriotic Americans on their way to college – every one of them. It is a pleasure and honor for me to know them.

Sue Silverstein and the teachers at Bishop Maginn were a miracle to them. hey very much want to say goodbye in a way that honors their immigration, the school, and the school’s place in their hearts. They deserve as much and more.

Every grade is coming to the prom, one of the last places where they will all be together again.

They want to say goodbye to all of it, and they want to do it together. They want to honor the experience with an actual, not self-decorated, prom.

There is little time for that now.

They don’t want to make their decorations out of recycled objects. That isn’t how they want to say farewell to one of the most critical periods of their troubled lives.

They were very excited and grateful when I proposed raising money for their prom.   don’t intend to disappoint them yet again.

They are proud to be in America, and they want a typical prom, which every American senior can have despite the awful bloodletting in Ukraine.

I am not aware of any school canceling their senior proms because of it.

The refugee kids want an American prom – good food, music, a nice place. t’s a special thing for them, a benchmark, and they were thrilled when I said we would help them do it.

Their lives were not like our lives. They are not comparable.

And this is 2022, not 1986. My prom has nothing to do with their prom, and neither does anyone else’s. We are not them, and they are not us, and I don’t measure what other generations should do by what I did or didn’t do.

I see no relevance in that.

God help them.

Honestly, I do not quarrel with anyone who decides to skip donating to this project.

No one needs to explain it to me or anyone else. No one who feels the least bit uncomfortable with this prom idea should feel obligated to participate in any way.

And if people would prefer instead to send the money they have to Ukraine, I have no quarrel with that. any AOG people have limited incomes; they should send their money where their hearts tell them to.

And if anyone can put a lovely prom together for several thousand dollars or less, it’s Sue Silverstein. ut I’d be happy to give them a special one.

We can do it with small contributions and certainly with a few big ones, and we’ll make do with what we get. The donations I’m getting seem to be from the people with the least money. here is something affirming for me in that.

So I am committed to getting them their prom and keeping at it until I get them enough money to get the dance they want and deserve.  I will be grateful for whatever we receive.

If you don’t wish to contribute, I fully understand. It is not for me to tell you what to do or judge you in any way.

If you wish to contribute to the prom, here are the details.

I’ll keep people updated as to where we are – you can send a tax-deductible contribution directly to the school: Principal Mike Tolan, Bishop Maginn High School, 75 Park Avenue, 12202, make checks payable to Bishop Maginn High School, write Prom Fund on the memo line.

If you’d instead send a contribution to me, for whatever reason, that’s fine. ‘ll make sure it gets there. on Katz, Bishop Maginn Prom Fund, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816 or via Paypal, [email protected], or by Venmo, Jon-Katz@Jon-Katz-12.

And whatever you do, thank you for existing and working hard to do good in a dark and sad time.