Kazakhstan orphans visit Bozeman

By KAYLEY MENDENHALL Chronicle Staff Writer

with dreams of staying

As Mike Burgard addressed the noon Rotary club Tuesday, his voice cracked and his eyes watered.

He told the story of 12-year-old Aigul, an orphan from Kazakhstan, and how when she came to stay with his family she owned nothing more than two pairs of socks and one set of clothes.

After only a week in Bozeman, Aigul and her brother and sister may already have much more to call their own. They are part of a family.

Through Kidsave International, a national non-profit organization, the Burgards and eight other Bozeman families raised $62,000 to bring 17 kids from a Kazakhstan orphanage to stay here for six weeks.

The Summer Miracles program is presented as a summer camp adventure for the kids, but the ultimate goal is to find each child a permanent home. Families can sign on to host children with the intention of adopting them or they can host while looking for adoptive families.

Burgard is doing both, but at the end of the six weeks he'll have to send his future kids back to Kazakhstan while completing the piles of paperwork needed for adoption approval.

"You can go from advocating, like I was, to deciding to adopt, like I have," said Burgard, who owns Color World in Bozeman. "I am a 45-year-old man with a $5 million business and I have five kids of my own."

If they could, he said he and his wife would adopt all four of the kids staying with them this summer. But, because of a Kazakhstan law, they can only adopt the three related siblings, leaving 14-year-old Alia in need of a home.

"You could consider adopting one of the available children," Burgard suggested to the Rotarians as one way to help.

Of the 17 kids visiting Bozeman, only three are in need of interested families. Alia, Erlan, 4, and Arman, 6, are hosted by families who can't adopt them, and Burgard said there are kids in other cities also looking for permanent placement. Summer Miracles programs go on across the country with kids from Eastern Europe visiting cities from Boston to Los Angeles.

Kidsave was founded in 1997 and focuses on Eastern European orphans because no other organization is advocating for them, Burgard said. In Russia, children are "graduated" from the orphanage at age 16. Of the 1,500 who graduated last year, one in three became street people and 10 percent committed suicide.

The program was first brought to Bozeman last summer when Craig and Jan Druckenmiller hosted one child. They ended up adopting her and the Druckenmillers wanted other Bozeman families to share the experience.

"We formed a committee last fall and things took on a life of their own," Craig Druckenmiller said.

The kids take swimming and dancing lessons while here and the group has a community potluck each week.

For more information contact Burgard at 587-4508 or Druckenmiller at 586-5773.

Kayley Mendenhall is at kmendenhall@dailychronicle.com