April 5, 2022

 

"You can never have too many books or too many hugs." 

 

Margherita was scared to get in my car with her children, as I later found out at the end of the ride. However, she was a bit more reassured when she learned that I would be part of a convoy with a van with other two families. She and her son (David) and daughter (Alexandria with the painted face) slept almost the entire three-hour ride. Due to the language barrier, we hardly spoke more than ten words to each other.

 

 

I've discovered that Ukrainian people love to give hugs. When we arrived at the hotel and I prepared to say goodbye, Margherita surprised me by giving me a warm hug. When I went to hug Alexandria, she opened her arms wide and with a big smile, gave me a long hug.

 

At first David was a little shy, but he soon warmed up and buried his head in my shoulders for a big hug.


 

Someone once said that you can never have too many books or too many hugs. How true.

 

Food for hungry Ukrainians left behind

 

The suitcase distribution program ended for me when my Canadian friends, Peter and Lee, went home last weekend.  I was looking for some other projects in addition to transporting families when I remembered that an organization called Caritas-Ukraine (https://www.caritas.org/where-caritas-work/europe/ukraine/) needed volunteers to help unload food and supplies from trucks at the Polish side of the border into vans driven by others into Ukraine. Ukrainians who have been displaced internally within their country are in dire need of shelter, food and other necessities. Others are trapped in basements and shelters in the major cities, potentially starving to death unless aid organizations can safely deliver food to them.

I decided to purchase food for the Caritas-Ukraine program with the support of Type of Wood Charities, the designated charity of my GoFundMe campaign (https://gofund.me/59df7095)https://gofund.me/59df7095https://gofund.me/59df7095 and transport it in my SUV to a warehouse in Poland for distribution in Ukraine. 

So yesterday I went to a Costco-like store in Krakow called Makros and purchased $633.73 dollars of canned food and containers, loaded it into the back of my SUV and delivered it to the warehouse.



I will send another shipment of food on Thursday or Friday and this time, I may accompany the driver and actually go into Ukraine to see the shelters and program for myself, as long as it's safe and the wait at the border is not too long. Keep posted.
 




 

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 6, 2022 at 3:51 PM

    John I am so appreciative of all your efforts; we have donated and will continue to do so; so glad that you are there to help and support those in need. Thank you for all you do! Love following your blog.

    ReplyDelete

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