With family members hiding in basements as rockets fly overhead, Ukrainians in Saskatchewan are rallying to organize aid efforts to help their loved ones overseas.
“We’re hoping we can spread this information so people know how they can help out,” Coronach resident Yana Sheina told Global News Tuesday.
“People are running low on products at grocery stores. It’s just terrible.”
Sheina, along with several friends also living in Saskatchewan, has been working with the Ukrainian National Federation’s (UNF) Regina branch to coordinate aid efforts.
They’re asking others with means to purchase certain in-demand goods to drop them off at the UNF Hall at 1737 St. John’s street.
Items collected will then be shipped privately to Toronto, where they will be delivered internationally to Poland by an international delivery company called Meest. From there, the items will be sent into certain areas of Ukraine deemed safe for delivery.
Meest lists in-demand items as new clothing for men, women and children, first aid kits, non-perishable food, thermal underwear and toiletries.
Sheina said that monetary donations are also needed, as delivering the items to Toronto costs around $2 per kilogram.
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A contact at UNF in Regina told Global News that a 1750 kg shipment already left Regina for Toronto Wednesday.
With several family members still in Ukraine, Sheina says every moment that ticks by between communications is excruciating.
“No one is going to bed until they hear back from every friend and family member,” she said.
“You wake up praying that nobody in your family died.”
She told Global News of an uncle who lives in a town in the Sumy oblast in northeastern Ukraine near the Russian border. She said Russian troops have surrounded her uncle’s town, and that his family has watched rockets fly overhead towards Kiev.
She added that she fears her young brother, who is just 18 years old and enrolled in a Ukrainian military academy, will soon be forced into combat.
Regina resident Mykola Bongar, meanwhile, told Global News that due to the conflict he was unable to travel to be at his mother’s side when she passed away recently from an undisclosed illness.
“I can’t even go to Ukraine because of war,” Bongar said, exasperated.
“My family hears the sirens every day, and they just had to spend 24 hours in their basement.”
The federal government announced last week that they would match donations to the Canadian Red Cross up to $10 million.
According to the charity, that number was quickly met and as of Wednesday afternoon, the Red Cross appeal had collected about $24.4 million on top of the $10 million government donation.
The Canada Ukraine Foundation, meanwhile, is also collecting donations. The organization says it’s “working with Ukrainian government ministries, who are in the best position to advise on the needs on the ground so that we can ensure that the donations we receive meet the needs of the Ukrainian people.”
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