Food / Hygiene Supplies for Ukrainian refugees in Poland

We have updated the page with the donations we made with the rest of the money. With this, the campaign concludes. We want to thank all of you once more for helping us make a difference albeit small.

Sincerely,

Vladimir & Maurene

World Central Kitchen had a tent with hot meals for refugees at all three refugee centers we visited in Poland. It is at the front lines providing much needed meals for all of those who had just escaped war in Ukraine. We are happy to contribute to their efforts as well. Donated $260 USD.

This organization was responsible with providing basic hygiene products to refugees at Krakow station. From what we saw with our own eyes, this organization is on the ground helping those in need. This is why we've decided to donate $260 USD to Caritas' Ukraine effort.

Our first donation was made to Filip Pitkowski in the form of 2,000zloty ($465). He is hosting 7 children and 4 mothers at his property in Mielnik. The children are already going to school and taking classes in Ukrainian, while the mothers are looking for work. We are happy to support Filip and his efforts.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ukraine-crisis-krakow-station-idUKKCN2LH08Y

First of all, it is absolutely amazing to reach our secondary goal as of this morning. 5,160$!!! We are infinitely thankful to all of you who supported us and we should all feel proud.

Sunday morning we woke up early, by 7AM we were back at the Krakow train station and left another load of supplies that we had purchased before the store closed the previous night. 99% of stores are closed on Sunday in all of Poland so we were unable to go to Makro again that day. However, at this point we had a fair amount of random purchases that did not fit under food or hygiene and were rejected by the distribution center. This included: several small bags of pet food, a few sets of colored pencils and drawing paper, a few plush toys, batteries. There was also a big grocery store within the train station that was always packed, but we were still able to buy a few cases of juice boxes for children and bananas for the food station. At this point we decided to start going around and giving the stuff away directly to people. We saw a little girl sitting on her suitcase, she had a blank expression and her thoughts were elsewhere. Where was her father? She looked worried. Maurene approached her and handed her a set of colored pencils and coloring book. The girl said in a very soft voice "Spasibo", her mom looked at us, nodded and smiled. This moment alone made it all worth it. A similar episode occurred when we handed a bag of dog food to a woman and her elderly mother. A small dog was sleeping at the older woman's feet. They were happy to receive this dogfood, the dog was not a priority for them but they looked happy to have him around. We gave away the rest of the stuff, we bought another few cases of juice boxes that we handed out to children. This is when we decided to leave for Warsaw, we took a quick stroll to the Old City of Krakow, and got in the car. We arrived late, but managed to find the main humanitarian center by Zadochnia Bus Station, located South West of the city center. There weren't many volunteers, but a whole lot of people were there. We asked one of the volunteers about what is currently needed, and he wrote us a list. Bananas, Apples, Small bottles of water, baby food, diapers (pampers), juice boxes, wafers for children, bath sponges and socks. It was midnight, so we found a spot and took a nap in the car. He was very specific about the brand of diapers, he said many people had donated other brands but there were wide reports of allergic reactions to them. So he said, if you want to buy diapers, please buy Pampers. Makro's opening time was 1AM, not very standard, but it worked for us. We woke up a few hours later and proceeded to fullfill the list. By this time we were pros, we filled the car to its capacity. This purchase was almost 60% bigger than our previous few. The mission was complete. We set out to help the Polish volunteer effort and we felt like we achieved it. Some funds still remain and we have a clear idea as to how to proceed with it. Please expect another few updates in the upcoming dates with the breakdown and documentation of our spending. Once all of the funds have settled we will donate what we can to the organizations that were active in the places we went to.

Here I would like to talk about Poland. Amazing people! A great sense of solidarity was prevalent everywhere, we even got pulled over as I rolled a stop sign in downtown Krakow, but as soon as the police officer saw the baby food and supplies in the back he let us go. Because most Government and Non-Government institutions are focusing their resources and efforts directly to Ukraine, the refugee situation was almost entirely handled by volunteers. There were a fair share of foreign volunteers as well, but the fact of the matter is that there are no major refugee camps in Poland. Most people have already found a home, it was apparent that Poland accepted Ukrainians with their arms wide open, and it is a great thing to see. I'm sure Poland isn't unique in this sense, but still, I cannot talk about our experience without emphasizing this reality.

I am not the most religious, but as of the last few weeks, I've prayed on more than one occasion. Here we pray for you, for the Ukrainian army, the people of Ukraine, the great nation of Poland and all of Europe and the World. May we all avoid war and conflict as much as possible to a brighter and better future.

Vladimir & Maurene

While I’m not aware of the exact data, it’s probably not too far fetched to say that Krakow has seen bigger influx of Ukrainian refugees than any other city in Europe. When we arrived here yesterday, you could notice that the city was at its capacity. There were people everywhere. The Krakow Central Station was absolute mayhem, but we made our way to the supply distribution booth and proceeded to unload our first carload of supplies. The saturation of people was impessive and nothing was easy. Once we unloaded we spoke with some of the local volunteers and got a long list of things that are needed and requested. Supplies that were constantly running low. The list included, shaving razors, shaving cream, paper/plastic cups, fruit juice boxes, milk, baby cereal, water, feminine products, socks, fresh fruit, insta coffee, tea, toothpaste, spray deodorants, hand cream, hand sanitizers, wet wipes, bar soaps etc. The whole situation was overwhelming and you could tell that some local volunteers have been working very, very long hours. We got the list and began to make our runs to the local mega store (Makro). From noon to 11PM we made a total of 5 runs. Five full cars of supplies that we knew for a fact were much needed at the station. Often times when we would make our way with the cart to the booth, people would swarm us and reach for items on the cart. We had to keep calm and make sure the carts made it to the distribution both for appropriate allocation. Yesterday we made a difference. Yesterday YOU made a difference. Today we do the same.

PS. Special thank you to Piotr Eliasz and TradeLink LLC (my employer) in Warsaw who gave us a membership card for the Makro store without which, this would be much more difficult. Piotr was always available when I had any sort of questions or requests. Tradelink has also been sending a van full of supplies directly to Ukraine on a daily basis since the beginning of the invasion.

We arrived in Przemysl late last night, it was just before midnight. The roads leading there got eerily quiet in the last half hour of the drive. The first person to greet us while we were still in the vehicle was a 6’5”, 300lbs soldier with an automatic rifle who instructed to go around to another entrance. There we saw a few dozen Polish soldiers from the reserve. The message was clear “You’re safe here”. It wasn’t hard to understand why that was important. After registerinng for volunteers, we grabbed a cart and loaded up our first round of supplies. We then walked into the humanitarian center. Our first impression was that there was hardly any room there. The facility, which looked like a repurpurposed Mega store (Costco, Home Depot etc), was warm and fortunately well stocked, but the situation is fluid. Lviv is not far from here and its airport was struck by Russian missiles just yesterday. Once we dropped off our first round if supplies (baby food, diapers, etc) we proceeded to ask if we can help. People were eager to find drivers to move these war victims further West, but otherwise he said it was a bit slow at the moment and we asked what the other problem areas around the country. They said Krakow main train station is currently the one humanitarian center in the most need for supplies. It is now 7am on Saturday we managed to sleep for a bit in the car center's parking lot, and I woke up to the sound of a small child speaking Ukrainian while being walked by what could only be his Grandfather, my heart bleeds for these people and my anger towards Putin only grows. Well, we will now put in a few hours of work at the center after which we’ll head to Krakow for the rest of the day. Thank you all for your support and we’ll do our best to update you again as soon as we can.- Vladimir & Maurene

We have almost reached our target and it's only day 2. Amazing support, we are thankful and now looking to scale up our original plans!

We're almost at a 1000$, only hours after going live. Average donation is more than 50$. Thank you everyone for the support!