Hope Center Babadag

The new Babadag Hope Center was dedicated on September 20, 2026, with nearly 150 people gathered to celebrate. After years of caring for about 30 children in a borrowed hair salon, the team now has room for 250, with space for meals, schoolwork, worship, and play. See how it began and how you can help care for the children who come next.

Vali and Alina Pavlov saw children on the streets of Babadag when they should have been in school. Some needed help with homework. Some were hungry. They needed adults who would care about their lives and help them keep learning.

Vali and Alina asked each other a simple question: What could we do?

They began with ten children. They helped with schoolwork and served a small sandwich and a cup of tea. There was no large facility waiting for them. They started with what they had and the children in front of them.

Made before Hope Partners met Vali and Alina, these children’s handprints resemble the Hope Partners logo. Each carries a name alongside words of love for the couple who cared for them.

In the spring of 2022, Kirk Nowery, president of Hope Partners International, met Vali and Alina while responding to the refugee crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. They were still serving from the church-owned building, caring for refugees as well as local children. Their stove had only one working burner. Their broken refrigerator served as a pantry.

Kirk saw their commitment and believed Hope Partners could help them grow the work already underway. The partnership began with a practical step: purchasing a new stove and refrigerator.

But another challenge lay ahead. The place where they gathered would no longer be available.

When the church took back the building, Vali and Alina needed somewhere to continue caring for the children.

Carmen, a local salon owner, offered her hair salon. The team moved in, and that borrowed space became the Hope Center.

Children received help with schoolwork there. The team held church gatherings there. Activities shared the same limited floor space, and meals had to be prepared elsewhere because there was no kitchen.

The salon could fit about 30 children. Carmen’s generosity gave the work a place to continue, but there was little room to grow. How could the team welcome more children when nearly everything had to fit inside one borrowed space?

After the move into the salon, construction began on a new Hope Center. Through the generosity of donors and the hard work of the local team, the building began to take shape while children continued gathering in the borrowed space.

Land was cleared. Concrete was poured. Walls rose, and the roof took shape. Electrical wiring went in, floors were laid, and rooms were painted.

For Vali and Alina, each stage brought something they had long needed closer to use: a kitchen for preparing meals onsite, common areas for schoolwork and activities, and space for worship and play.

Through years of work, the team trusted God and prepared for the day the children would walk through these doors. Now, those rooms were almost ready.

The new center was designed around needs the team sees every day. A child arriving hungry needs a meal before homework. A child without warm water at home needs a place to wash. And children need space where they can learn, play, and feel safe.

Just a five-minute walk from a nearby school, the center gives the team room to welcome more children as programs and support grow.

Vali describes children going to school without breakfast and sometimes going to bed without supper. His son David explains that, for some children, the meal at the Hope Center is their only meal of the day.

How can a child focus on homework with an empty stomach?

The new industrial kitchen creates space to prepare meals onsite, with a serving area and room for children to eat together.

Vali describes children going to school without breakfast and sometimes going to bed without supper. His son David explains that, for some children, the meal at the Hope Center is their only meal of the day.

How can a child focus on homework with an empty stomach?

The new industrial kitchen creates space to prepare meals onsite, with a serving area and room for children to eat together.