March 28
10,000 fed daily and 12,500+ people evacuated to-date
Ukraine Teams
The teams in Ukraine are scaling and becoming yet more efficient, effective, and essential in their communities. Our volunteer groups, for example, have combined efforts to source provisions for five restaurants feeding close to 5,000 people per day. We are sponsoring a truck of produce from outside of Kyiv where food prices for cabbage and potatoes are a quarter of those in Kyiv. At our scale, a produce delivery worth $8,000 USD can provide meal production for 2 weeks worth of operations.
Read about some of our teams' other achievements and stories from this week:
The operations of Natalia’s team have become more structured and sophisticated. She’s arranged for large shipments of food and essentials to be delivered to her teams who then organize and drive supplies to areas of need. In addition to her existing distribution, Natalia’s team has scaled to serve 1,000 more people in Chernihiv and she is feeding hundreds around Kyiv. Natalia has also recorded a video to express her team’s gratitude to Ukraine TrustChain and all of our supporters in the US. The scale of her success underpins the height of goodwill achievable through the collaboration of local and global humanitarian efforts. Thank you for your continued support.
Team leader Andriy continues to evacuate shelters of women and children; he was able to evacuate orphanages sending children safely to Portugal and Norway. His team also evacuated 13 elderly women who were unable to walk themselves. He wrote, “they cried” as the volunteers tucked these grandmothers with love and care onto mattresses and rugs of the bus floor and covered them in blankets to keep them warm. With their trembling hands, the women made the sign of the cross and cried both from gratitude and sorrow to leave behind blackened ground and burning buildings, once their home. The volunteers cried too.
In addition to basics like food, medicine, diapers, sleeping bags and mattress pads, financial support from Ukraine TrustChain funds the purchasing of evacuation buses, fuel for evacuations and supply deliveries, and auto repairs to ensure that caravans run evacuation routes as uninterrupted as possible.
Pavel now has several volunteer caravan teams and, as a result, they’re able to perform multiple evacuations simultaneously. This week his team evacuated close to 1,263 people. Pavel’s rescues are daring and dangerous; at times his drivers must literally go off-road and drive through fields to reach people.
New Ukraine Team Spotlight: Focus on Mariupol
Ukraine TrustChain has entered into a funding agreement with a new team after thorough consideration and evaluation. This team is led by Karina with operations spanning multiple cities but with a focus on Mariupol.
The once beautiful seaside city of Mariupol is now apocalyptic. During a food and diaper delivery, a volunteer captured the desolate and forsaken feeling of Mariupol. In a rare video the camera shows people standing outside of an old apartment building which has been converted into a shelter for displaced elderly adults, adults and young children ranging in age from infancy to middle school.
The word children is written in Russian in block letters on an exterior wall. A woman wrapped in winter clothing is clutching a baby in her arms; she watches people cooking over a flame in a tin garbage can. The volunteer enters the building; people in the hallways still wear winter coats. Inside is dark, except for individual phone flashlights and the flickering light from a makeshift fire. “Go look in the basement,” an elderly woman says; “everyone is down there.” As the camera descends the stairs into the dark basement, the depths of human suffering in Mariupol are clearer than a lens ought to be able to capture. Confusion is all around. People are tucked into every square inch – aimless, afraid. A young child’s face is dotted with antiseptic; he retreats into his mother’s arms. The camera person asks, “is that from shrapnel that hit his face?” A flashlight moves to light more children in the corner. “The way people are living. This is so scary,” the volunteer says.
Ukraine TrustChain is in awe of our new team run by Karina – she’s managing supply and evacuation routes in the hardest hit and most decimated cities of Ukraine including Mariupol. Her team provides food, diapers, baby food, medicine – and anything useful they can get their hands on – to impossible-to-reach places. Mainstream humanitarian corridors exist but continue to be extremely dangerous, especially for the average civilian in their own vehicle, and unreliable, sometimes opening only for several hours. Jeeps, SUVs or pick-up trucks belonging to individuals who drive along these open corridors are targeted by the Russian army. Trying to drive alone to another city (100 mile trek) could take days. People are too afraid to evacuate on their own or to leave without their spouses, their elderly parents. Aid and evacuations from volunteer caravans are essential. People living in Mariupol have not had access to food, water, electricity, heat, or communication with the outside world for weeks; the situation is dire.
Karina’s volunteers helped to evacuate 55 people from Mariupol this week. It is nearly impossible to complete a trip from Mariupol to Dnipro in one day; volunteers have installed refugee centers along the route where people can eat and sleep before they continue their journey. We’re honored to be funding her team’s work.
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.
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.
