Do you have a dollar and can I see it?

I was sitting on the steps outside the mess hall at a summer camp in southwestern Ukraine, letting the sun do its thing and not thinking about much. This camp, run by Novi, was a safe zone for a hundred kids from the front lines—a place where the soundtrack was laughter instead of explosions.

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Danik, ten years old and sharp-eyed, plopped down next to me. He’s from Kherson, a city that spent a year under Russian occupation and now gets shelled so often the locals measure time by the blasts. I’ve been there. You hear a boom at most every five minutes, sometimes muffled, sometimes not. Danik lives there with his brothers. He remembers when I came by, cooked shashlik, and played football with them. That was enough for him—he decided we were friends for life.

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This time, he had a question. “Do you have a dollar?” I’ve been in Ukraine long enough that any dollars I brought have turned into hryvnias and vanished. I told him, sorry, no dollars. He looked a little let down, but it didn’t last. I handed him enough money for two ice creams, and when he returned we sat there, melting cones in hand.

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“Why do you want a dollar?” I asked.

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He shrugged. “I’ve never seen one. Just curious.”

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A few minutes later, another American volunteer strolled by. I asked if she had a dollar. She dug into her wallet and pulled out a crumpled bill. We handed it to Danik, and he stared at it like it was gold. When I told him he could keep it, his face lit up—he looked like he’d just won the lottery. Soon, his brothers and their friends showed up. Danik flashed his dollar. They passed it around, inspecting it like scientists, then handed it back. He tucked it into his phone case, careful as a banker.

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For the rest of camp, Danik showed off his dollar to anyone who’d look. It was his treasure. Later, I heard he kept showing it off back home in Kherson. For him, that dollar was worth more than anything money could buy.

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Not just a souvenir

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That dollar wasn’t just a souvenir. For Danik, it was a ticket to something bigger—a reminder that the world doesn’t end at the city limits of Kherson or the blast radius of a shell. It was proof that someone out there, somewhere, cared enough to give a kid a piece of another world.
But here’s the thing: a single dollar can only do so much. It’s a spark, not a fire. Imagine what happens when we pool our resources. What if we could give Danik more than just a keepsake? What if we gave him books, safe shelter, a shot at a future where the sound of explosions is replaced by laughter and the crack of a football?

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Now zoom out. What if Kherson wasn’t just a city you hear about on the news, but a place where kids grow up dreaming bigger than their circumstances? What if a hundred kids like Danik weren’t just surviving, but thriving? What if Ukraine itself became a place where hope isn’t rationed out one dollar at a time, but floods in by the thousands?

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That’s the power we hold. Real change starts small—a crumpled bill, a shared ice cream, a moment of connection. But if we act together, those small acts add up. They can rebuild lives, reshape cities, and, if we push hard enough, tip the scales for an entire country.

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So here’s your chance:

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Don’t just read about Danik. Be the reason he—and kids like him—have something to show off, something to believe in. Give what you can.

Let’s see how far we can take this. Let’s see if we can change the world, one dollar at a time.

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Preston Button is a Novi staff member living in Kyiv, Ukraine. Preston loves to play with children, climb mountains, and to have meaningful conversations about meaningful subjects. He is also the person who does all things computer and tech-related in Novi. We don't know how we would make it without him.

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Photo: Duke Caldwell

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