A paralegal who’s been using his connections with local air and cargo establishments says a sixth shipment of medical, hygiene and food supplies for those affected by the war in Ukraine will leave Hamilton next week.
Stefan Sobolewski says a team working out of a city centre church and the John C. Munro International Airport has been responsible for close to 650 boxes shipping every couple of weeks to Poland.
“So it’s every two weeks now where we’re sending out the flights,” Sobolewski told 900 CHML’s Good Morning Hamilton.
“It gives us a better opportunity to collect these donations and find the specifics of what we need in terms of medical and in terms of hygiene.”
Using the Holy Spirit Ukrainian Catholic Church on St. Olga Street as the “hub” for collections, the crew has been sorting donations and transporting them to the Hamilton airport for the roughly 7,000-kilometre trip to eastern Europe.
Sobolewski, who has Ukrainian roots, says his idea came to fruition after enlisting the aid from the airport’s operations manager and officials at Cargojet, where he was once employed.
“I worked at Cargojet many years ago and figured I’d go and ask for some help. Lo and behold, they gave me the green light for a humanitarian run,” said Sobolewski.
“I also went to my other previous employer, the War Plane Heritage Museum, directly spoke with CEO David Rohrer and he stepped up as well, giving me … space to sort donations through.”
Cargojet footed the bill for the first of the transports in March. Since then, a pair of Ukrainian Credit Union branches in Toronto have been able to cover costs via donations.
Sobolewski says medical supplies are top of the list, particularly first aid kits, tourniquets, gauzes, bandages and ibuprofen in 400-milligram doses.
Diapers for babies, feminine hygiene products, canned and dry food, protein bars and coffee are next on the list.
“Military non-lethal as well — you know, boots, socks, underwear, elbow pads, knee pads, tactical gloves, that sort of thing,” Sobolewski said.
The next donation run for the Holy Spirit church at 15 St. Olga St. is set for noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 22.
In addition to physical donations, monetary donations are also accepted via the church, according to Sobolewski.
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