January 23rd, 2025
66,765 people evacuated from danger to date
95 people evacuated from danger this week
37 trips into deoccupied and frontline territories this week
Along with everyone connected to Ukraine, anxiously wait to see if there will be major shifts in US policy toward the war. In the meantime, nothing has changed. Frontline communities are shelled with predictable regularity and diligence; nightly sirens in all the major cities wake our volunteers up from sleep; and our teams continue their work, drilling wells, delivering water, distributing essential supplies, and rescuing people from towns about to be razed by the enemy.
Stories
A Well in Krasnotorka
We are happy to report that another well has been completed in Donbas, in the village of Krasnotorka. These wells are an example of collaboration between different Ukraine TrustChain teams. Our dear friend Anastasia and her team Love UA have identified a number of locations in Donbas that are good candidates for new wells. These locations have water supply problems, a large number of residents, and uncertain but not yet lethal conditions, due to the approaching front line. The team doing the actual drilling works with Vitaliy, our Kharkiv volunteer whose work you can see summarized weekly under the Oleksandr D’s Volunteer Networks section of our newsletter.
As this project demonstrates, Ukraine TrustChain provides not only direct financial support to our Ukrainian volunteers, but also helps create horizontal connections between teams in different cities, leading to collaborations that bring tangible improvements into the lives of people surviving near the front line.
Children’s Programs in Ukraine
Our teams continue to care for Ukraine’s children, helping them to forget the war raging around them for a short while. Ukraine TrustChain teams operate multiple ongoing programs for children around the country. Oleksandr Z leads daily art therapy classes in Lutsk; Bohdan helps internally displaced (IDP) children in Zhytomir; Olena Shulha holds weekly activities in Mykolaiv. Inna Kampen’s team also works with children in all their locations, from Druzhkivka to Kherson. One of Inna’s volunteers is Yuri. A pastor in peacetime, he now heads Inna’s of Kryvyi Rih team. Yuri shared some stories of the children that he and other volunteers helped last week.
Danilko is a little boy from Kryvyi Rih. He is eight months old. He was born after his father had already passed away, while defending his family and country from invaders and murderers. Danilko’s father was a family doctor who was loved and respected by his patients. He became a combat medic and died saving the lives of wounded comrades, leaving his wife a young widow. Danilko lives with his mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, who are now raising the boy.
This child, born during a brutal war, will never see his father alive. He will never run into his arms. He will only know about his father from the words of others. Yet he will feel and witness the gratitude and respect for his family from those who understand and honor dignity and freedom, thanks to his father’s sacrifice.
Kira and Sviatoslav are brother and sister from Kryvyi Rih. They lived without their father for two and a half years, being raised by their mother, who was worn out by the pain of worry and uncertainty. Their father, a defender of Mariupol, was captured by the occupiers with his unit in the spring of 2022. For almost three years, he didn’t see his children growing up. He couldn’t witness his son’s first steps or hear his first words. He didn’t hear his little daughter crying for him. The inhumane conditions, physical pain, and torment of separation tore this family’s hearts apart.
This little girl has a military mom. Mother and daughter rarely see each other because the mother is often away on missions in hot zones. Her latest deployment coincided with the holidays, taking her in the Donetsk direction. Once again the little girl’s mom couldn’t be home with her child. The girl’s mother wishes for peaceful skies for her daughter and for the war to never reach their home. That is why she must confront and stop the war before it creeps closer. Meanwhile, the child is being raised by her grandmother. Both mother and grandmother are deeply grateful that you have not forgotten them, for your support and warm understanding, for your care and appreciation, and for making the holidays special for their child!
Evangeline is seven years old and attends elementary school. She lives in a village in the Kryvyi Rih District with her mother. Before the war, Evangeline’s father lived a happy life with the family. But with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, her father had to join the armed forces to protect his family and home. Some time ago, after completing a combat mission, all contact with him was lost. He has since been listed as missing in action. Evangeline (whose name means “good news”) and her mother, continue to tirelessly search for any information about the father’s whereabouts. Evangeline’s greatest dream is for her father to be found alive and to receive a gift from him one day.
Help in Occupied Territories
150 packages delivered in 2 occupied towns.
Team Summaries
Alina’s Team – Dobra sprava (Good Deeds)
15 trips, 93 people evacuated.
Inna’s Team – Krok z nadiyeyu (Step with Hope)
21.7 tons of aid delivered.
Aid provided in 43 villages and towns, including 12 high risk locations in Kharkiv, Donbas, Dnipro and the Kherson Region.
6,600 people received bread.
8 tons of firewood were delivered to 2 villages near Kup’yans’k.
Kherson operations:
Disinfected 19 buildings, including 3 large basements.
Organized a kids’ celebration in Kherson.
10 equipment maintenance tasks completed.
Installed a new kitchen for a Kherson resident
Teams delivered aid to Kostyantynivka.
Held events for children still remaining(!) in Druzhkivka.
Delivered stoves and bread to Beryslav District.
Angelia Charitable Fund
Provided free medical consultations and services at the village medical center in Kivshovata (Kyiv Region). Particular attention was paid to vulnerable groups: military families, retirees, people with disabilities, and other socially unprotected categories. Services included ECG studies, blood, urine and glucose laboratory tests, ultrasounds, and consultations with a cardiologist, psychiatrist, traumatologist, dentist, family doctor, and gynecologist. 84 patients received a total of 327 services.
Oleksandr D’s Volunteer Networks
Vladyslav K (Mykolaiv): delivered 35 tons of drinking water to Mykolaiv and 7 tons to Kherson.
Andriy P (Mykolaiv): distributed 80 gift sets to children. Brought a VW T5 bus, VW Passat B6, and a camping trailer from abroad, loaded with tires, food, clothes, sleeping bags, shoes, mattresses, and sweets, for a total of 1,350 kg.
Sandra S (Odesa): kitchen fed over 500 people.
Yuri S (Vinnytsia): delivered 100 kg of clothing to the Harmony rehabilitation center in Vinnytsia. Brought an internally displaced (IDP) woman with her newborn from the maternity hospital to the village of Stepanivka. Took a disabled person to social rehabilitation.
Vitaliy Z (Kharkiv): delivered 3.5 tons of humanitarian kits, clothes, medicine, and animal feed to Lyman in one trip and 2 tons of various aid in another trip. Finished drilling a well for drinking water in Krasnotorka, Kramatorsk District. Evacuated 2 people (an elderly couple) from the village of Stavky, near Lyman, to Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk Region. Visited an animal shelter in Kramatorsk, where dogs from all over the front are taken for adoption, and brought dog food and a puppy, who was adopted to the Kharkiv Region.
WeCare Centers (Lviv): delivered 6,100 kg of humanitarian aid, including wheelchairs, clothing, and children’s porridge to Korosten, Pereyaslav, Obukhiv, Uman, and Odesa.
Oleksandr D (Lutsk): distributed 100 kg of sweets to IDP children and children with disabilities in Chernivtsi and Ternopil. Delivered 750 kg of grains to NGO Buty dobru ta myru (Be Kind and Peaceful) in Lutsk. Delivered 90 tons of fuel briquettes for 225 households in the Orikhiv community, which, once again, had to be delivered to Zaporizhia for safety reasons. Part of the delivery was picked up by residents coming from Orikhiv, about 30 miles away. Another part was given to IDPs from Orikhiv who had relocated to Zaprorizhzhia. Delivered 22.05 tons of briquettes to 55 households in the village of Komyshany, Kherson Region. Delivered 5.61 tons of firewood to a rehabilitation center in Kharkiv, which houses 25 IDPs and disabled people.
Oksana K (Lutsk): gave a baby box to a family from Torchyn (Volyn Region), clothes and diapers to IDPs, clothes to a local resident with cancer, and diapers to 3 seriously ill people. Received 740 kg of grains from a Ternopil-based plant for further distribution. Mailed 125 kg of aid packages to wives and children of military personnel. Handed out 15 kg of clothing and 6 kg of hygiene products at the local distribution point.
Oleksandr Z (Lutsk): provided therapeutic interventions and aid to IDP children, children with disabilities, children from military families, and military personnel and veterans – held 2 art therapy sessions for a total of 104 children and puppet therapy for 56 children. Took 60 military personnel and veterans to an exhibit of pottery and woodwork. Distributed bread and other food to 390 students and 80 children evacuated from frontline areas and living in IDP assistance centers. Collected glasses for 30 adults and children. Conducted 93 medical procedures to improve the health of children with disabilities from Zaporizhia and assisted newly arrived IDP children from frontline regions in prophylactic treatment and physical rehabilitation.
Karina’s Team – My ryatuyemo Ukrayinu (We Save Ukraine)
157 people in the shelter.
Tetiana’s Team – Dopomoha poruch (Help Is Near)
Delivered 420 aid packages with food and hygiene products to the villages of Verkhn'ozoryans'ke and Starovirivka in Kharkiv Region.
Timur’s Team — Komanda Teymura Alyeva (Timur Alyev’s Team)
Distributed 370 aid packages to families in Tyshky and North Saltivka.
Special deliveries to 16 families with infants and 8 elderly with disabilities.
Pavel and Olena’s Teams – Dotyk sertsya (Touch of Heart) & Svitanok mriy (Dawn of Dreams)
Resumed weekly trips in Mykolaiv/Kherson regions.
70 aid packages delivered to Myrne.
570 families received vegetables in Kobzartsi, Partyzanske, Kysylivka, and Kvitneve.
Pomahaem Foundation (We Help Foundation)
Delivered 135 packages to Dobropillya.
Delivered 260 packages to Bilen’ke, near Zaporizhzhia.
Delivered 24 tons of water to Nikopol.
2 additional trips to high-risk areas.
Marina’s Team – Daruy dobrо 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)
Distributed 635 packages of aid in Kremenchuk, Poltava, Kanev, and Dnipro; mailed 100 packages out of Dnipro.
Serhiy T traveled to Kotel’va, delivering 150 packages of aid.
Bohdan’s Team — Vse robymo sami (We Do Everything Ourselves)
43 families in Zhytomyr received food and hygiene kits.
In the club for children with disabilities children learned to cook liver and vegetable fritters. Working with a knife is quite a challenge for children with disabilities, but they learned to master both a knife and a grater. Kids also had art therapy and played psychological relief games.
Alena - Diva (Virgo)
Delivered aid in the form of 500 loaves of bread, warm blankets, towels, and clothes for people whose homes were destroyed, as well as gifts for 135 children.
Liza and Katya continued to support 15 wounded in Odesa hospitals.
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, LinkedIn, or Bluesky Social 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.