Thank you so much to everyone who has offered donations to my friends in Ukraine. This is a fundraiser to help right now with some short-term needs.
Background info: A year after I graduated from college, I spent a year in Kiev, Ukraine, working for a non-profit organization (ISAR) that distributed grants to grassroots environmental and humanitarian NGOs in Ukraine, Molodova, and Belarus. It was 1995 and an exciting time to be in Ukraine. The Soviet Union had recently dissolved, and Ukrainians were re-instituting their language and society. I got to spend a lot of time with the different non-profits, and travelled all over Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus meeting them. I also made good friends with several of the about 15 or so Ukrainians and one other American, Alyson, who worked in our office in Kiev. One non-profit that I spent the most time with was "Compass Club," and the wonderful couple, Taras and Lyuda that run it. Compass Club was (and still is) an outdoor-adventure/survival skills club for kids from 5-18 that went on all kinds of hiking and camping trips throughout the year. The club spends a week every summer on "The Island" in the Dnieper River, building temporary shelters, cooking, creating skits, teaching each other and living outside. We also did two winter-camping trips where we took shifts minding a wall of fire we built a few feet away from our lean-to tent. The leaders of Compass Club are now leaders at the Rapid Response Units of the Ukrainian Red Cross and have been active helping people in times of unrest since the Maidan Revolution in 2014.
I made many other good friends through this time in Kiev with whom I am still in touch - Irina C., who now lives in France who loves gardening, cooking and everything beautiful; Sergei, the funny computer programmer whose family befriended me and Alyson and spent many amazing days enjoying the iconic city of Kiev with us. His daughter Sasha, who was about 10 years old (featured in the picture) when I lived in Kiev is now a beautiful and accomplished English, Russian, and Ukrainian teacher with excellent marketing skills and a lovely spirit. Through Compass Club I also met Natasha K., the leader of another children's club in Molodova - a boisterous, fun-loving, and caring person. Natasha now has two kids about Zane's age. Irina V., an artist and curator at the Bulgakov Museum, who introduced me to a lot of great Ukrainian and Soviet literature, as well as Georgian cooking, Ukrainian movies, and who was my Ukrainian teacher and my good friend to this day. She and her daughter visited us in Tahoe in 2018.
Immediate Needs
Below are some descriptions of the friends and their families that need help right now, or may soon. Feel free to donate to the fund in general, and I will distribute either equally or according to need, whichever seems better at the time. I know some of you may also be friends specifically with one of my friends, so if you would like your donation to go directly to them, please message me separately and I will ensure that it does. I am planning to wire the money via Western Union, and I will send it in two weeks, if not earlier.
Natasha in Chisinau, Moldova - here's the message Natasha sent me: "Dear Karen, you wrote about donations. I never asked for anything like that. I thought it is embarrassing. But now the situation is hopeless. Even a small amount would help us a lot. We've run out of home supplies. As for the money, we even spent those that were set aside for [some personal expenses]. And for refugees, we first of all need food and detergents (washing powder, toilet paper, soap, shampoo). We sent 7 people (and 3 dogs) to Europe yesterday. Today two pensioners from Kyiv are coming to us. They will stay with us for a few days until they get a plane from Bucharest. After them, one woman and three elderly people from Odessa are coming to us. We are ready to give everything for these unfortunate people. But our "everything" is already over. If you are ready to collect some donation and send us - it will be like help from heaven." The entire population of Moldova is about the size of 2 cities of Kharkiv, and over 100,000 Ukrainian refugees have already arrived there.
Sasha - Sasha was sheltering with her father and 84-year old grandmother in an underground car parking area for 7 days before the rocket strikes grew too close to them and they decided to evacuate. They took several trains and buses through the night yesterday and are now in western Ukraine near the Romanian border staying in a dorm, with their two cats. The dorm does not have hot water or a shower. They have savings to last them for about a month, so are ok for now, but I think they might appreciate some additional money to help with basic necessities, some comforts for Sasha's grandma, and maybe to help find a warmer place to stay.
Irina V. - Irina is not sure if she needs help yet, and I will update this if she does. She and her mother evacuated from Kiev to Warsaw 2 days ago and are trying to figure out what their next step is.
Taras and Lyuda from Compass Club are still in Kiev, and said they don't need money right now because there is nothing to buy. But their daughter with her two children has evacuated to Lviv, and although she has some savings for now, she will likely be running low on funds soon.
