Ky. mission races to gather supplies for Ukraine. How you can help, what to donate
Everyday, Alex Chubaruk hears stories about the human toll of war back home in Ukraine: no power to heat homes, children who have nothing to eat, wounded people who bleed out because there are no bandages.
Chubaruk, who heads a Christian mission, has been doing all he can. That includes partnering with the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church in Nicholasville, which over the weekend raised more than $145,000 for refugees with a bake sale.
“It’s just amazing,” Chubaruk said, stunned by the community’s recent support. “This means a lot.”
Still, there’s more work to be done in Chubaruk’s tireless quest to procure enough baby formula and basic medical supplies, not to mention work out how to ship it across the world.
“Our main thing is we pray that this ends,” Chubaruk said, adding that people in Ukraine are calling for help.
What do people in Ukraine need and how can you help?
All week from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., the bookshop that Chubaruk’s mission runs – Ebenezer Bookstore at 4371 Old Harrodsburg Road in Lexington – is accepting donations of supplies it plans to ship out by week’s end.
Chubaruk said the mission is shipping shelf-stable items overseas, which is expected to take about three weeks.
The mission also continues to take monetary donations at cmebenezer.com.
The mission has plenty of clothes, Chubaruk said Monday, but it’s looking for dry, shelf-stable foods, and baby formula is sorely needed.
Many Ukrainian children have nothing to eat, Chubaruk said, adding that some truck drivers won’t make deliveries into the country anymore. He said he has friends back home who have essentially become smugglers of food, doing what they can to help a besieged population stave off starvation. People are seeking propane tanks, Chubaruk said, to provide warmth and fuel to cook with.
To that end, Chubaruk said he’s also working to supply volunteers with protective vests after a report of a man who was torn apart by a mine while trying to pull someone from a ruined building.
As it stands, the mission has at least 25 pallets worth of supplies to ship out by the end of this week.
Chubaruk’s mind is already on his next job – figuring out how to gather enough basic medical supplies, like Tylenol and bandages – for expedited airmail to Ukraine.
“A lot of people are bleeding out because there’s shortages of bandages,” Chubaruk said.
With no end in sight to the violence – brought by a Russian invasion the United Nations says has forced 10 million people from their homes – Chubaruk can only do whatever he can and pray for peace. Chubaruk himself is from Lviv Oblast, a western region of Ukraine that borders Poland and Slovakia.
“It’s a nightmare,” he said.