On May 18th 2003 the Regional Non-Government Organization "Children and Parents Against Cancer" (St Petersburg, Russia) celebrated its fifth anniversary. 

The celebration took place in the City Hall of the St Petersburg Association of Non-Government Organizations of Parents with sick children. There were about 50 people present. 

Parents and children decorated the hall with bright balloons. Many people brought flowers. On the walls we fixed big photos and bright hearts showing the most important events in the "history" of our Organization. 

It is a good tradition to give presents on birthdays. So the Organization presented to our most active members photo albums with pictures of the most interesting events that took place during these five years. 

Parents made toasts to the health of all our children and to the future well-being and success of our Organization. One by one they stood up and pointed out that our Organization plays an extremely important role in their lives, that moral, psychological and material support of the Organization for families with children with cancer are their most precious moments, helping them and their families to return to normal, ordinary life. 

Many parents said words of praise for the editorial group of our newspaper "Zdravstvuyte("Hello!"). The participants of the celebration birthday party thanked the editor-in chief, Elena Astashkevitch, for her excellent work with a big storm of applause. 

All the parents and children expressed their deep and sincere gratitude to Katerina Kisseleva, Executive Director of the NGO "Children and Parents Against Cancer" and congratulated her on such a wonderful birthday. Everybody estimated extremely high her dedication to the Organization, devotion to cancer children's interests, hard and excellent, highly professional work and sincere attention to the really serious problems of cancer children's families. 

During the birthday party we had plenty of games and jokes; everybody laughed heartily. Elena Astashkevitch, who led the party, invented a nice game: she threw a balloon to the children one by one and they stood up and said tender, precious words to their mothers. It was an extremely touching moment: girls and boys could hardly wait for their turn, the children were so eager to express their love and gratitude to their mothers. 

On that day one of the boys, Alick Ibragimov, also celebrated his birthday, so everybody applauded him and he received a nice present: a book about the history of Russia. 

All the participants were so happy to meet each other and they talked about their joint trips, sightseeing tours and performances. They spoke about their common friends, looked through numerous photos and enjoyed themselves immensely. 

As a "dessert" there was a small concert. Nikita Semenov sang several popular songs, himself playing a guitar. All the audience sang together with him. 

We would like to express our deep gratitude to the company "Chupa-Chups" for the packs of sweet candy they presented to children. We also want to sincerely thank the meat company "Strelets" for that tasty food they shared with us on our birthday.