December 5th, 2024
66,042 people evacuated from danger to date
110 people evacuated from danger this week
44 trips into deoccupied and frontline territories this week
Thank you for the outpouring of support we received on Giving Tuesday. We are grateful for every donation and every mention of our organization on social media. Giving Tuesday starts a five-week period that is important for all nonprofits, as families across the US finalize their charitable giving plans for the year. Please keep mentioning Ukraine TrustChain to your network as a viable and efficient way to support humanitarian efforts within Ukraine, while leveraging the tax benefit granted to us as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in the US.
For our donors who are 70 1/2 years and older, please note that a qualified charitable distribution (QCD) can be made from your IRA to Ukraine TrustChain. Because the gift goes directly to a qualified charity, the dollar amount of the gift is typically excluded from your taxable income. Please contact us at donate@ukrainetrustchain.org with any questions.
We are also excited to share an article by Katerina Manoff, which was recently published in Vilni Media — a news and information resource created by Ukrainians in America. You may want to share this link profiling UTC with your network.
Stories
Update on Our Wounded Volunteer
Last week we reported the death of Artur Kucheriavenko. Many volunteers from Ukraine TrustChain teams gathered in Mykolaiv for the funeral to mourn his death and celebrate his life – a life that was dedicated to helping others to the very end.
Artur's father Vladyslav found out about Artur’s death right after waking up from a long and complicated surgery to remove shrapnel from his abdomen and lungs. Despite this terrible blow, Vladyslav is doing better. He wrote the following message to Oleksandr D: “I’m a little better now. I am able to get up and walk…”
In addition to internal wounds from shrapnel, Vladyslav’s right hand is broken. Yet he is eager to return to his mission.
Anastasia’s Unjust Eviction
Anastasia is a fearless volunteer from Dnipro. We’ve had the honor of supporting her trips to the most dangerous parts of Donbas, providing humanitarian aid and collaborating with other teams to drill wells in villages, some of which have since been destroyed by enemy bombs. However, last week Anastasia had to postpone her trips due to a frustrating administrative issue.
For two years Anastasia rented a basement where her team prepared packages and collected aid. Last week, her landlord suddenly changed the locks overnight and demanded more money. Rather than approaching the issue honestly, and informing Anastasia about raising the rent, the landlord accused her of fraud, shouted, and attempted to file a baseless police report.
For us, who speak to Anastasia daily, trace every cent of her well documented receipts and witness her struggles, these accusations are laughable. We can only conclude that the landlord created a scene to avoid the guilt of evicting a charitable organization. However, the accusations hurt Anastasia deeply and felt like the ultimate injustice and lack of gratitude.
It is in moments like this that the support of our American team liaisons becomes important. We were able to help the team to move locations quickly by providing flexible funding for temporary storage, while at the same time supporting Anastasia emotionally and assuring her that our entire community is behind her and appreciates the sacrifices she is making.
Precarious Life in Lyman Direction
The first volunteer in the Ukraine TrustChain network continues her work. Last week Natalia traveled to Lyman. Some of the aid she brought was for a shelter and invincibility point in the city, but most of her cargo, consisting of 210 family packages, was transported to the frontline villages of Zarichne and Tors’ke.
These villages are located two miles away from the Russian position. The situation there is difficult, with ongoing Russian assaults and relentless shelling. Local villagers brave the lethal roads once a week to deliver aid to their community, driving out to Lyman and bringing the aid back, street by dangerous street. On the most recent trip, one of the villagers went to his basement to put away Natalia’s aid. This departure saved his life as a Russian shell exploded right next to his house while he was downstairs.
Yet the local people’s attachment to the land is palpable. One elderly man who was evacuated to a Lyman shelter couldn’t bear to be away from his sheep and fled, trying to walk back to his village. The volunteers gave in and gave him a lift home.
A “Happy” Story of Survival
As volunteers continue to risk their lives delivering firewood in frontline regions, they are bombarded not only with Russian missiles, but also with life stories from eager local residents. These stories often have a “happy” ending, but with a distinct aura of tragic realism that dominates life in Ukraine today. Inna’s team shares the following story from the village of Kapytolivka in the Oskil community:
One of the men who received aid had escaped from Borova during intense fighting. He made his way out however he could, catching rides from locals, and also sometimes from soldiers. Eventually, he reached the Oskil community.
With nowhere to go, the man spent two nights sleeping on a bench at a bus stop. People from the community noticed him, filled out registration papers for him, and provided him with a house where he now lives. Back in Borova, the man had owned a house and two cars, but he lost it all. When he fled, all he managed to take with him were his documents.
Life had dealt him a tough hand. Before the war, during peacetime, he used to work on assignments away from home. While he was away, his wife left him. When the war came, his children also fled abroad, leaving him completely alone.
When the man arrived, he had nothing to his name. It was the community, the locals, the neighbors, who shared what they could. He is deeply grateful, even for the firewood he received. Having lost everything, even this firewood feels like a small victory and a step toward triumph.
Help in Occupied Territories
170 families received aid packages in an occupied town. Assistance was also provided to 22 families in two occupied villages. These included people who are unemployed, cancer patients, disabled people, single parents, and large families. The families received food kits, medicine, hygiene items, warm blankets, electric kettles, thermoses, thermo mugs, thermometers and knee pads. Firewood was also purchased for four families.
Team Summaries
Alina’s Team – Dobra sprava (Good Deeds)
14 trips evacuating 103 people from Velyka Novosilka, Pokrovsk, Udachne, Kurakhove, and Komar areas.
Inna’s Team – Krok z nadiyeyu (Step with Hope)
130 tons (182 cubic meters) of firewood delivered to Oskil and Bulakhivka.
21.1 tons of aid delivered.
Aid received by 8,050 people in 37 towns.
6,600 people received bread.
Delivered aid to 10 frontline towns: Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Druzhkivka, Kostyantynivka and Rodyns’ke in Donbas; Izyum, Balakliya, and Oskil near Kharkiv, as well as Kherson and Nikopol.
Kherson operations:
After vicious shelling Kherson has been without electricity, water or heat for 3 days.
Disinfected 19 spaces.
Completed 21 equipment maintenance tasks.
Angelia Charitable Fund
Delivered a German hospital bed and clothing, in total weighing 850 kg, from Chernivtsi to Kyiv. Aid was delivered to the Social Initiative educational and media space, which takes care of internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kyiv. Because of the situation on the front line, Kyiv is receiving more and more refugees, making assistance to them more urgent.
While in Kyiv, loaded medical scrubs and brought them to Chernivtsi. They will be distributed to the blood transfusion center in the village of Mamaivtsi and to other institutions in the region.
Oleksandr D’s Volunteer Networks
Sandra S (Odesa): kitchen fed more than 400 people. Very difficult conditions, with frequent shelling and power outages, have made the kitchen’s work challenging. The volunteers are considering alternative ways to proceed.
WeCare Centers (Lviv): traveled to Szczecin (Poland) to bring back 10 tons of baby food, 1 ton of toys, and 600 kg of mineral water to the team’s warehouse in Boryslav.
Vitaliy Z (Kharkiv): delivered 4 tons of humanitarian kits, clothes, medicine, and animal feed to Oleksiievo-Druzhkivka (Donetsk Region). Because of the heavy shelling of the area, some locals agreed to evacuate next week. Delivered 225 tons of fuel briquettes to 750 households in Kramatorsk and Balakliia. Delivered 2 tons of aid in the Pokrovsk direction. Began drilling a second well in the Illinivka Rural Community (Donetsk Region), across town from the first well.
Oleksandr D (Lutsk): the southern arm of the fuel delivery project has been paused, due to the tragic death of Artur Kucheriavenko.
Oksana K (Lutsk): Helped a family whose daughter has been disabled since childhood with adult diapers. Distributed food to IDP families in Lutsk and set up a distribution point for further aid. Sent a package of food in the Zaporizhzhia direction and another package to Odesa.
Oleksandr Z (Lutsk): provided therapeutic interventions and aid to IDP children and adults, and to children with disabilities.
Held 2 art therapy sessions, for a total of 46 disabled and IDP children and adults.
Provided tactical glasses to 30 IDP students at a college.
Visited the theater with 55 IDPs, a museum with 28 people with disabilities, and held events for Day of the Volunteer Soldier.
Helped 240 IDPs and 60 children and young adult students with bread and other food. Most of these young people have been left without parents, or their parents are in occupied territories.
Provided 62 physical therapy and wellness sessions for IDPs and others suffering from the stress of war. Also conducted 6 preventative children’s health procedures. In the future the team plans to create a club for the health and rehabilitation of war victims.
Darya — Supported through Livyy bereh (Left Bank)
Darya evacuated 4 people from Zapadne and Doroshivka.
Karina’s Team – My ryatuyemo Ukrayinu (We Save Ukraine)
160 people in the shelter.
Natasha’s Team – Volontersʹkyy tsentr Vyshnya (Cherry Volunteer Center)
Natalia traveled to the vicinity of Lyman, delivering packages for 210 families in villages of Tors’ke and Zarichne.
Timur’s Team — Komanda Teymura Alyeva (Timur Alyev’s Team)
Distributed aid packages to 373 people in Saltivka.
Special deliveries to 18 infants and 9 disabled elderly.
Evacuated 3 people from Kup’yans’k after a rocket hit their house.
Pavel and Olena’s Teams — Dotyk sertsya (Touch of Heart) & Svitanok mriy (Dawn of Dreams)
Delivered vegetables to 412 families in 4 villages near Mykolaiv.
245 families received fuel briquettes.
65 IDP families received aid packages in Novohryhorivka.
Overall delivered 70 tons of fuel briquettes and 7.2 tons of vegetables.
Pomahaem Foundation (We Help Foundation)
34 packages delivered to Zaporizhzhia villages and 134 to Pavlivka, near Mykolaiv.
24.5 tons of water delivered to Nikopol.
The team took a total of 15 trips. Of these, 4 were to frontline regions. 8 of the trips were for vetting cash aid recipients funded by other major international organizations, with UTC supporting logistics and transportation.
Marina’s Team — Daruy dobro Ukrayina (Give Good Ukraine)
150 food and hygiene packages were distributed to internally displaced individuals in Piatyhatky.
Dina’s Team — Vilʹni lyudy, vilʹna krayina (Free People, Free Country)
365 packages distributed this week in Kremenchuk, Poltava, and Kanev.
Supported an art therapy group for children in Kremenchuk.
Bohdan’s Team — Vse robymo sami (We Do Everything Ourselves)
43 families in Zhytomyr received food and hygiene kits.
Donated medicines to the city hospital.
At the Children's Club for Children with Disabilities, kids took part in psychology relief games, made jelly deserts and learned about financial literacy.
How to Help
Donate — The money goes directly to teams providing aid on the ground, who respond dynamically to the most urgent needs.
Fundraise — Organize fundraisers at your school, work, place of worship, with friends and family, etc.
Spread the word — Share our website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Fill out this form if you’re interested in volunteering with us, and we’ll let you know when opportunities come up.
Download and print our flyer. Ask your local coffee shop if you can add it to the bulletin, or use it as part of your fundraiser.