Washington, DC – The Hungarian American Coalition (Coalition) received a $675,000 grant from the Charles and Lisa Simonyi Fund for the Arts and Sciences. The grant supports key educational and humanitarian programs in Hungary: $425,000 to the Foundation for Károly Simonyi Primary School and the Students of the Village (Simonyi Károly Általános Iskoláért és a Falu Diákjaiért Alapítvány) to fund the second phase of the school rehabilitation; $50,000 to the John von Neumann Computer Society (Neumann János Számítógéptudományi Társaság, NJSZT); and $200,000 channeled through the Coalition to the Kegyes Foundation of Munkács (Mukachevo), Ukraine, as part of the “It’s good to be good” (Jónak lenni jó) fundraising initiative.
The Simonyi Károly Általános Iskoláért és a Falu Diákjaiért Alapítvány, located in the village of Egyházasfalu near the Austrian border, honors Charles Simonyi’s father, Károly Simonyi, a renowned physicist, engineer, and educator born there in 1916. This $425,000 grant will fund the complete upgrading of the school’s electrical wiring, plumbing, and heating.
The John von Neumann Computer Society (NJSZT), founded in 1968, leads Hungary’s digital progress with over 50 groups and 2,000 members, promoting digital literacy. The Society coordinates Hungary’s ICDL (International Certification of Digital Literacy) program, which has accredited more than 500,000 Hungarians; it also runs informatics Olympiads and the IT History Museum in Szeged. The $50,000 grant will aid its mission as the “GPS of the digital world,” fostering innovation and talent in information and communication technology. More information: https://njszt.hu/en
Lastly, the $200,000 grant to the Kegyes Foundation (Kárpátaljai „Elfelejtett” Gyermekek Segítése Jótékonysági Alapítvány), launched in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, will allow the Foundation to purchase a building in Munkács (Mukachevo), Ukraine, to provide a home for children in need: abandoned and orphaned children, the disabled or chronically ill, and those in deep poverty.