April 27, 2023
50,529 people evacuated from danger to date
226 people evacuated from danger this week
29 trips into the deoccupied and frontline territories
April 20th was International Volunteer Recognition Day. We want to take this opportunity to celebrate our volunteers, without whom Ukraine TrustChain would be unable to exist. Our unique model relies on volunteers both in the US and in Ukraine to help Ukrainians in war. Volunteers in Ukraine, many of whom prior to the war had careers and lives entirely unrelated to volunteerism, have shared with us time and again that this work gives them meaning, despite the grim realities and suffering they must bear witness to daily. Other UTC volunteer team leads, like Andriy, Pavel and Olena, Marina, and Bogdan, who had already been involved in community sustaining efforts prior to the war, expanded their work and reach, helping to save the lives of thousands and thousands of people. At this point, there are over 900 volunteers working with UTC in Ukraine, forming a second front of resistance.
Ukraine Team Milestones
Ihor’s Team — Dobra Sprava “Good Cause”
Focusing on the same areas in need of evacuations, the Dobra Sprava team completed 14 trips this week, bringing 181 people to relative safety elsewhere in Ukraine. One of the trips took them to Slovyansk where last week a Russian rocket hit a residential building, killing 15 people, including a 2-year old girl and her father.
Kseniia’s Team - NGO Livyj Bereh
Kseniia was taking a break last week, but the volunteers of Livyj Bereh, its cofounders Ihor and Vlad, have finalized a major shipment of sheet metal to the Kharkiv region for roof repairs in the upcoming weeks. Trucks with more than 5,000 square meters of sheet metal arrived on site and the roofing materials are being distributed to the next families in queue. The Kherson volunteers consisting of two volunteers, Svitlana and Olha, took a break as well. One of them spent time with her husband who came back from the army for a few short days. The team still went ahead with one trip, distributing about 50 packages to families with children.
Natasha - Vysnia Volunteer Center
The Kryvyj Rih branch of Natasha’s volunteer organization took another trip into Kherson village. Tetiana and Andriy Pasenko returned to the village of New Osokorivka, bringing onions, seeds and potatoes for planting, eggs and sweets for 80 families there. At this point all of the families in those villages have been given help and assistance with the planting season. Our volunteers’ proximity to the Kherson region allows them to take frequent trips, and, like the volunteers on Inna Kampen’s team, they continue to take one or two trips each week.
Karina - We Save Dnipro
Karina’s shelter hosted 79 people, of whom 32 are children. Her team continues to distribute humanitarian aid to the families they support in Dnipro. These families include those who lost their homes in the Dnipro apartment bombing, displaced families with single parents or with a parent serving in the armed forces. In total, the team helped 89 families and prepared 36 more packages to send to those who were affected by the bombing in Zaporizhzhia last week. Two evacuation teams supported by Karina drove 37 mostly elderly people from the Donetsk region.
Alena - Virgo Volunteer Center
After several days of rain delays, the crew in Kisilevka has finally begun their work installing plastic windows in the homes damaged during occupation. The residents pass along their gratitude to our donors, without whom this would not be possible.
Alena is also dealing with some challenges this week, as she lost the warehouse she was able to rent at a very reduced rate over the past year. If this sounds like a familiar theme, that is because several of our teams have already faced this problem and we’ve written about it in past newsletters. Fewer resources are available and fewer people can afford to help the volunteers, making our work particularly meaningful and timely.
Inna’s Team - Krok z Nadiyeyu
Inna’s volunteer guard continues its massive operations. 19,150 people received help last week. 22.5 tons of aid was distributed as well as 187,000 pounds of planting potatoes and seeds. These operations canvas enormous territory across seven regions of Ukraine.
In the Donetsk region, volunteers brought a truck with potatoes for planting and aid items to the village of Piddubne on the western side of the Donetsk region. Here, many main bridges have been destroyed. Only smaller vehicles under the 3 ton weight limit are allowed to cross over the pontoon bridges. As a result our volunteers had to take multiple trips from Piddubne to other villages to complete the deliveries.
Inna’s team delivered half a ton of hygienic products to Kramatrosk. The most difficult part of the journey is to cross Pokrovsk - the first town on the way into the Donetsk region where the roads are in really bad shape.
Food aid was delivered to Kupyansk and Kovsharivka. This is a high-need area, and multiple UTC teams are prioritizing this direction despite substantial risk of enemy fire. In the more stable parts of the Kharkiv region, we sponsored a revamp of a used cultivator, a tractor that is used to help Ukrainian families during the planting season. Local families were particularly grateful for this kind of help, saving a lot of manual physical labor.
The Kryviy Rih team made two trips to the Kherson region again, delivering food and basic necessities to Beryslav and Davydiv Brod. 7 volunteers continue to work in the Nikopol area focusing their efforts on planting season (helping 300 families last week), and providing food to 30 vetted families in need. Two families received portable gas stoves.
Our agrarian project continues in the Zaporizhzhya area as well, where 8.5 tons were delivered; while all these processes are in flight, Inna’s team is preparing tomato, pepper and cabbage seedlings for planting in early May.
Natasha’s Team - Vysnia Volunteer Center
Tetiana and Andriy Pasenko, based in Kryvii Rih, delivered aid to 75 families in the village of Nova Osokorivka. As usual, in addition to food, they brought seeds, potatoes and onions for planting. Because this trip happened a day before Easter, there was a special delivery this time. Tetiana managed to deliver eggs into the village. Coloring eggs for Easter, or making “pysanky,” is an iconic Ukrainian tradition. The village no longer has chicken, and the gesture symbolized the care and thoughtfulness that our volunteers bring into the process of delivering aid.
Meanwhile Natalia completed another trip to the deoccupied area east of Lyman. They visited two new villages: Kryva Luka and Zakitne. Few families stay in those areas; in all of Kryva Luka, only 87 families remain. People are returning to the area and are starting to fix their homes.
Pavel’s Team — Touch of Heart and Dawn of Hope
Last week, we did not get the numbers in time for the report. From April 10th-16th, Pavel’s team helped 5,136 people. 5,050 more were helped this week. The focus of the team continues to be on refugee families, children and large families in Mykolayiv. During our visit to Pavel's headquarters in Mykolayiv, Pavel’s team members were especially proud of their space for children. As refugees come to receive aid, many of them come with children. Olena and a few members of the team specialize in communicating with children, playing, developing a relationship with them while parents wait for them to receive aid packages.
The team delivered 100 packages to families in Kherson and provided aid to a hospital in Mykolaiv. Their warehouses continue to operate. They delivered to three villages: Partyzanske, Kvitneve and Kalynivka. These villages also serve as trailheads for multiple nearby villages. Due to minefields remaining from the occupation last year, those villages are inaccessible to the vehicles of our teams. Only locals are able to walk between villages via tested trails to pick up aid. People are grateful for the help and are asking for tree saplings and building materials. Despite the risky conditions, Ukrainians continue to return to their villages and begin rebuilding.
Marina – Good Give Ukraine
150 sets of food and hygiene products were given out to families in Piatykhatky and Saksahan distribution centers. Marina’s team also provided food and care packages to mothers with children injured as a result of the war and who now live in the territory of the Zhovtovodsk community. Marina took a small break at the beginning of the week to spend time with her own kids and to recover her health, but now she is back to volunteering.
Oleksandr’s Volunteer Network
Pavlo V’s Dnipro Volunteers delivered 2,250 kg of groceries for the residents of Kramatorsk, 3,600 to Slovyansk and napkins, matches and candles to Sivers’k. Deliveries here are difficult because the shelling does not stop and in Slovyansk it was also raining. But everyone in need knows that the "angels of hope" (the volunteers) will arrive with help. In Sivers’k deliveries were made under fire. 40 minutes after Pavlo’s team unloaded in Slovyansk, 11 rockets hit the city: 40 people were injured, 11 died and seven are missing. Grief is a constant companion here and help does not go unnoticed.
Oleksandr S’ team in Boyarka brought classroom equipment for children with special needs to the Chernihiv Children’s School and delivered aid to the border areas of the Sumy Region which is under constant shelling by the Russians.
Sandra S’ kitchen in Odesa fed more than 1,400 people. Many of these are IDPs who don’t have facilities to cook hot food. This week many of the IDPs were from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Oksana K from Lutsk brought humanitarian aid from the outskirts of Warsaw, including pickled vegetables, canned goods, baby food, energy drinks, produce, cereals and cookies, as well as diapers for adults, backpacks, and hygiene products. Five families with children with disabilities received groceries and diapers. Boxes with cereals, cookies and energy bars were delivered to the military in the Donetsk Region, and goodies were sent to Oleksandr Z's pottery school in Lutsk. The team also sent a package to a father and child in a family where the mother has died.
Oleksandr Z’s NGO Zirka Nadiyi (Star of Hope) in Lutsk offered an art therapy workshop at the Lutsk Educational Rehabilitation Center for children with developmental delays. The children sculpted souvenir candle holders for the Armed Forces Garrison Hospital which were later delivered to the wounded soldiers. A second art therapy class was held ahead of Mother’s Day at the Zikra Nadiyi headquarters, and a third at the Adrenaline Network for children with cerebral palsy, locomotor disability, deafness and for children of IDPs. The team also provided 23 prescription glasses and 21 sunglasses to pensioners and IDPs.
Vladyslav K delivered 28 tons of drinking water to Mykolaiv. Vilis N from Chernivtsi also traveled to the Mykolaiv Region (Pervomais’k, Yuzhnoukrains'k, Berezka) bringing 270 backpacks, 270 sports suits, 180 jackets, 200 boxes of candies for teachers, tangerines, oranges, kiwi, tomatoes, cabbage and cucumbers.
Our anonymous volunteers in an undisclosed occupied area have continued to distribute food packages. 120 kits were given out on the church grounds and many more were delivered personally to people’s homes. The volunteers are particularly glad to help the children. Every Saturday and Sunday, a group of children rushes to the church, which has become a second home for them, where they can really receive help and care. The elderly are also grateful for the food aid. Some of them are not getting their pension because the offices of the temporary authorities are not working properly.
Dina - Vilni Liudy – Vilna Krayina
Dina’s team distributed 585 packages. The distribution centers continue to bring in donations from other sources. They handed out medicine, pet food, diapers, and clothes to displaced and local families in Kremenchuk and Krasnokutsk.
In Dnipro, Darya, the paralympian who founded the NGO Ya Zmogla (I could) and helps people with disabilities, delivered aid to their homes. Dina directed some funds to pay for the transportation.
Sergiy traveled to the Donetsk region bringing food, medicine, and vitamins for the children to the towns of Drobyshevo and Yampil.
Tetiana’s Team - Dopomoha Poruch
This week Tetiana’s team distributed 210 aid packages in the villages of Rotmistrivka, Kutsivka, Kovalyha, Mel’nykovka, Tashlyk, Sanzharyha, Samhorodok, Makyivka, Nosachev, and Lenskoe. The team also brought food and hygiene products to a summer camp in Smila that houses 19 internally displaced families. In addition, Tetiana mailed 10 aid packages to families in need that live far from Smila, delivered aid to a cancer patient’s family, delivered aid to an internally displaced grandmother who suffered a stroke after learning that her home had been destroyed, and brought food and sweets to some of the internally displaced.
Andriy’s Team - BF Pomahaem
70 people live in Andriy’s shelter. Andriy’s charitable foundation Pomahaem is focusing on supporting their key initiatives including the shelter, the rehabilitation center “Ioaniv Center, '' and upcoming projects to reopen a permanent shelter for the elderly and people with disabilities.
Timur’s Team – Timur and Team
This week Timur’s team delivered 200 packages of aid to nearby villages. The more difficult deliveries were in Kharkiv where they delivered to individual apartments of 50 disabled elderly. They spent some time repairing their vehicles which took a beating from recent deliveries. The team is planning for larger deliveries closer to the front and those will likely be ongoing by the time you read this letter.
Bogdan - Vse robymo sami
85 families received food assistance enough for several weeks. Seven families in need received slats and mattresses.
The youth of the "We Do It All Ourselves" social group had another therapy session, this time concerning dreams and why it is essential to keep dreaming even in the darkest of times. There were other activities for children through Bogdan’s organization last week. Zhytomyr regional library helped to organize a concert for little ones. Library staff introduced children to local poets and their work, and students of Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University created a performance for children.
US Team
We want to thank the Rashi School in Boston for its thoughtful, heartfelt, and generous Tamchui Project and fundraiser for Ukraine TrustChain. Your students’ concern for the Ukrainian people was inspiring!
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