HELP FOR UKRAINE

Up date from Richard 19/04/24

Hello everyone! Just an update on where we are with our Ukrainian projects!

To be honest, all is now focused on the US Senate vote on Saturday. If they vote against the aid package to Ukraine, they vote against European security. It is one of the most important moments in post war European history, we can only hope they realise that the defence of Ukraine is the defence of democracy and liberal values. Please, please do spread this message, we need to make sure that people understand that this is not just a humanitarian aid effort, it is a question of our national security.

So that said – the update:

Huge thanks to Anne-Marie, Hugh and Zina for their work in buying supplies in Kyiv over the last few days, all of which is making its way to front line communities. We have spent £9500 in purchasing supplies in Kyiv, either directly or through our partner at Sustain Ukraine and HUGS. I look forward to hearing more about the trip, but I have seen the pictures of the purchases and Anne Maries’s trip to Sumy and already know how important this trip has been, at a time when eastern Ukrainian communities are under constant attack. Thank you to the team!
Marcin and Emil have taken all the supplies we sent out via lorry into Ukraine and delivered to Pastor Aleksander in Rivne. These supplies will now be on their way to front line communities, Marcin will be delivering a lot of this himself to small villages in southern Ukraine.
Princebuild’s amazing efforts have resulted in a huge £32K addition to our funds! What an amazing team! Thanks to all of them and to Justin and Lesley for running on Sunday! It was quite inspirational to be part of this effort and to see the commitment of the Princebuild team.
Let’s say a huge thank you to Liz Symonds for another £500 donation from the sale of her beautiful greetings cards – she has now personally raised nearly £4000 for our projects and it keeps coming! Thank you, Big Sis!
We have also had recent donations of £2K from Cross Keys Homes and £3k from a private trust! Respect to these wonderful organisations! And to the many individuals who continue to donate on a regular basis.
Our next project is of course the general collection campaign that will result in the June drive out. Princebuild are providing three vans for the delivery and the idea is that they will drive to the summer camp and join the HOUF tam out there on the Friday night to give out gifts to the widows and children, before unloading in Gliwice. We are still looking for new donation points, please let us know if you can help.
At least five of us will be attending the Summer Camp in Poland this year, working with Kashia and Galya to offer respite care for over 20 war widows and their families.
We are planning to deliver at least 2 4×4 vehicles over the summer, buying in Romania and driving through to Kyiv, via Chernivtsi, meeting up with our friends there (the Annas) and then possibly meeting up with the Mayor of Vinnista, Peterborough’s’ twin city in Ukraine!
Colin has done a marvellous job in sorting out our purchases: and is in position now to complete orders of thousands of LED lights and hundreds of camp stoves.

Many thanks to everyone involved, it makes a huge difference and we know is much appreciated by Our Friends In Ukraine.

Thank you!

Richard Astle

Chair, Helping Our Ukrainian Friends

07885 252571

www.helpingourukrainianfriends.com

Dec 2023

An update on the Ukraine delivery from Richard Astle

Just a quick note to say thank you once again for all your support for our work in taking aid to Ukraine.

We successfully delivered 7.5 tonnes of supplies, including: food, clothing, medical supplies, generators, gift boxes for children, camping stoves, LED lights (for bomb shelters) and tourniquets. Most of this was dropped off at Rivne in western Ukraine, from where it will be delivered to front line communities in the coming weeks. We then took two ambulances to Kyiv, and handed those over to a team supplying medical units on the front line near Kramatorsk. They have already been repainted into camouflage green and will be soon in action, saving lives.

There are lots of photos of the delivery to Kyiv on our Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons – please do share them with your community – and many more will appear soon as the supplies get distributed.

Once again thank you for all your help and support. We will be planning our next trips out in the New Year – the key message we heard across Ukraine was the importance of maintaining our work and demonstrating the continued support of our communities for our friends in Ukraine.

Best wishes

Richard Astle

Update Justin Tilley

Day 8 and 9 for the Helping Our Ukrainian Friends volunteers, have been days of travelling and reflecting on the past week.

We left Kyiv late on Wednesday, travelling through the night on the sleeper train across the country, waking to bright sunshine and beautiful snowy Ukrainian landscapes.

We enjoyed traditional tea and coffee, marvelled at the scenery and chatted to others on the train. Lots of surprise at having English travellers here. Stories were shared of personal struggles and sorrow, but also the huge resilience and sense of duty of Ukrainian people to protect their homeland. There was the greatest of appreciation for the British support from all of you. Donations are one (very important) part of the picture, but telling how we’ve received more support for this trip than ever before brings genuine hope for those suffering from the invasion of their country.

We arrived late evening in Krakow, enjoyed the beautiful city, slept well and now are experiencing the travelling tradition of checking departures to see just how late our Ryanair flight home is going to be!

So this is your Ukrainian correspondent signing off with a couple of final thoughts. The world has a heap of overwhelmingly sad stories being told right now. Do what you can to help, whatever that cause is that is close to your heart. Don’t be a bystander. Give what you can, whether that is time, money, expertise or spreading awareness. But have hope. The Ukrainian people are utterly focused on bringing peace to all their country and for all of their people. They are generous, welcoming, talented people with big hearts. So are this terrific group of volunteers that I’ve had the privilege of working with, under the direction of Richard Astle, without whom, none of this would have happened.

We’ll be shipping more deliveries out soon, but right now I just really want to get home, give my children a big hug and sleep for about a month…

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/helpingourukrainianfriends2023

If you want to find out more then check out the Peterborough Evening Telegraph article below and our just giving page:

Handing over the ambulances and meeting the front line team

It was a lovely service this morning (29 October 2023) with Richard talking to us about how we have helped and can continue to help the families in war torn Ukraine.

If you have any donations for him please get them to St Firmins Church Thurlby by the 19th of November.

Thank you for all your help and support.

DONATIONS MAY BE LEFT IN THE PORCHES OF ANY OF OUR THREE CHURCHES AT THURLBY,BASTON AND LANGTOFT BY 19TH NOVEMBER.

Hi there all!

I thought I would just give you a quick update on our work to Help Our Ukrainian Friends, as it might have seemed a bit quiet from us for a while. And to thank you again for all your help and support.

Although we haven’t been out to Poland/Ukraine since the Easter Campaign in March, there’s a lot of work going on! We sent out a further 12 pallets of food, medical supplies and Gift Boxes for children in April using a freight company, as we simply couldn’t economically drive this amount of aid out in small vans. And we for the last two months we have been supporting a Polish humanitarian worker, Marcin, who has given up his job and is now working full time delivering aid to communities on the front line in eastern Ukraine. He has already delivered all the supplies we sent out in March and April and is now using our financial support to buy additional supplies, including fresh bread and water. If you look on our Facebook page, you can see him delivering packets of Weetabix that were donated by people in Peterborough! https://www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons

Our next project is a summer camp for Ukrainian families who have lost a father, brother or son in the war. These families will be travelling to Poland on 3 June for a week long residential camp, designed to offer respite and, if needed, professional counselling. We are helping to fund the camp, and four volunteers will also be travelling out to help with activities for the children. You will be pleased to know that we are taking out a cricket set and hope to convert the Ukrainian children to the joys of our national summer sport!

After that we are planning a further three trips to Poland this year, delivering food and medical supplies donated here and also using the funds we have raised to buy more supplies in Poland and Ukraine (where that is cheaper). These are currently planned for late June, September and December. More details to follow in due course, when we start collecting donations again.

You can continue to follow our work on our Facebook site – https://www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons and of course, if you would like to support us financially, you can use our Just Giving page – https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/helpingourukrainianfriends

Thank for all your help and support.

ukraine-update Download

Ukraine– Easter 2023

Ukraine Update Wednesday 15th March

Hi there!

Just a short note to say that we have successfully set off from Peterborough this morning, with four vans full of food, medicines, torches, candles and nearly 1000 Easter Gift Boxes for Ukrainian children. A total of six tonnes of important supplies.

Thank you so much for all your help and support in making this happen. We should arrive in Gliwice, Poland on Friday afternoon. On Saturday we will be transferring our supplies on to Polish lorries and also hosting a party for Ukrainian refugee children and giving out some of the gift boxes. On Sunday some of our team will drive a further 12 hours into Ukraine, to the town of Rivne, arriving on Sunday night. From here the supplies are taken by Ukrainian volunteers to communities on the front line near Bakhmut, Lyman and Sumy.

We will keep our Facebook page up to date with images of the delivery, please do share these with your friends and teams and pass on our thanks for all your help. https://www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons

Kind regards and thank you!

Hi there!

I just wanted to give you an update on the recent delivery to Ukraine and thank you again for all your wonderful support and help: for this trip, and for all our work over the last twelve months. The Ness Group of parishes has been one of our key supporters and it is much appreciated. You can see some of the videos from our trip on the You Tube channel https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy0QCmIALTCV8v1PT0oyqsgc-cbaZgar6 – there are also lots of photos on the Facebook page, including of the children receiving the Easter Boxes – https://www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons

A team of 12 people from around Peterborough successfully delivered over 6 tonnes of food, medicines, camping stoves, knitted garments and torniquets to Pastor Aleksander in the western Ukrainian town of Rivne. From there he will take these on to front line communities near Bakhmut and Lyman. We should have photos and videos of those deliveries shortly, and I will forward them to you. We also delivered over 800 Easter Gift Boxes. Some of these were given out to Ukrainian refugee children in Gliwice, Poland at an event we hosted for the refugee community there; others were taken to schools near Rivne and Kostopil and still more were send using the wonderful Ukrainian postal system (which delivered from Rivne to Odesa in less than 24 hours) to communities in Kharkhiv, Odesa, Chernivtsi, Kyiv and Kryvy Rik.

I have to say that the predominant feeling I took from our friends in Poland and Ukraine is one of weariness, after a year of fear and uncertainty and a winter of struggle. Our help is incredibly well received, sending that message of support that is so vital, as well as the practical help that food and medicines gives.

We are already planning our next project, which will be to support a summer camp for Ukrainian mothers and children who have lost their fathers in the war. This will be held in Poland in early June. We will be fund-raising to support the camp financially but also hope to send a team of six Peterborough based volunteers to help run the camp, focusing on delivering arts and crafts and sports sessions every afternoon for the children.

After that we have plans for at least three more deliveries of essential supplies in the summer, autumn and winter. To date we have delivered over 20 tonnes of aid, 37 generators and over 1000 gift boxes and raised over £150,000. Thank you for all your help and support.

Kind regards

Richard

Sunday 12th March 2023

Visitors to the Refresh Café earnt their tea and cake today! Wonderful help from them to load the van up with our collection to go to the Ukraine, the van was full to bursting. Richard, who was collecting it will be driving over there next week with the deliveries – 4 vans are going this time. Our thoughts and prayers go with all who are making the trip for a safe journey out and safe return home. Thank you again to all who contributed to the collection.

Many thanks to all you generous people who knitted and donated hats and scarves to the Ukraine Appeal and food and clothes etc. Everything is now boxed up ready to go. There is a bumper collection of beautifully made hats and scarves, these wont just keep people warm but will raise the spirits of the wearers knowing how much love has gone into their making.

The donations will be collected from St Firmin’s Church tomorrow , Richard is coming along to our Refresh Cafe tomorrow afternoon to collect it all (Sunday 12th 2pm-4pm) Why not come along and find out first hand about who will benefit from the donations.

Ukraine Christmas Appeal

Dear all!

We thought you might like a quick update on the Christmas Campaign to Help Our Ukrainian Friends. We are so grateful for all the support we have had from so many people and wanted to let you know how much this continued and ongoing support is appreciated by the Ukrainian community.

You can watch videos of the Campaign and the trip to Poland and Ukraine on our You Tube channel – https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy0QCmIALTCVSGeIUFGmtNimtouWhnjx- and there are lots more photos on the Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons Please do share these with your congregations.

Three vans carrying around 5 tonnes of food, warm clothes and Christmas Boxes for Ukrainian children set off from Peterborough on 30 November, travelling through Germany and arriving in Poland on Friday 2 December. The team of six drivers from Peterborough, Doncaster and Dronfield were joined in Gliwice by four other members of the team who helped to unload our vans and reload onto trucks bound for Ukraine. In addition to the donations brought from Peterborough, the project had also funded the purchase of 20 generators in Poland, which (and they were very heavy!) were also loaded onto the lorries.

As part of the Christmas Campaign we had arranged with our Ukrainian friends in Poland for a Christmas party for Ukrainian refugee children. 120 children joined us in a church in Gliwice for an evening of music and singing, including a very average rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas by the UK team! We had also brought with us small gifts for each of the children. Many Ukrainian ladies who joined us for the evening came up to us to say how important such support and messages of hope are to them and their children.

On the Sunday 3 December, the empty vans started on the long road back to England through a cold and snowy Germany, while Richard joined the trucks travelling across Poland, and over the border into Ukraine, stopping near Rivne, where our long-term partner in these projects, Pastor Aleksander, has his church. The next day we unloaded all the donations and were able to visit the church where the local school is currently based in the basement. Their normal building is unsafe as it has only a covered trench, rather than a concrete basement, for use in air raids. One of the generators will ensure that they don’t have to sit in the basement in the dark, when the electricity is off (it is currently only on 4 hours a day). We gave out 120 of the Christmas Boxes, each one of which had been created by children at schools in Helpston, Oundle, Peterborough, Dronfield and Doncaster. The video on our You Tube channel shows the children saying thank you! The other boxes will shortly be delivered to communities in eastern Ukraine.

The generators have already been distributed to community venues across Ukraine – to a community café in Kyiv, to a charity for the deaf in Odesa, to communities around Rivne and Sumy and to refugees from Kharkhiv now living in western Ukraine. The food and clothes will be delivered in the next week or so to communities in Sumy Oblast and villages around Kherson.

We are starting now to think about how we continue our support for Ukraine and the many communities and individuals we are now in touch with. We are looking at further trips out with donated food and clothes and potentially a large Easter Campaign. We hope to support another Summer Camp for Ukrainian refugee children in summer 2023 and to continue our support for the Kyiv Heart Institute through the purchase of heart valves. We will need your continued support to make all this happen, but hope this brief summary of a busy and emotional trip for us all, shows just why that support is needed and how our efforts do make a difference.

Ukraine’s future matters to us all. As a team we are committed to doing what we can to help the people we have met, the communities we have helped and the country we have become so proud to support. We would like to thank everyone involved for their support – whether donating food and clothes, making financial donations to help us buy generators and heart valves, helping children to create Christmas Boxes or heaving heavy boxes into vans; it all matters and it all makes a difference.

Thank you for all your help and support! It is much appreciated!

Richard Astle on behalf of the Helping Our Ukrainian Friends project team

07885 252571

And here is a generator being delivered to the school.

These ladies are making vareniki in the school canteen for soldiers on the front line.

Many thanks to all for the generous donations for the Christmas Appeal. The donations have been collected by Richard and are now on there way.

The food will be delivered to Gliwice in early December, reaching the front line communities before Christmas. Please include the Richard, the volunteers and the people of Ukraine in your prayers.

You can find out more about the project on the Facebook Page and Just Giving site

www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/helpingukrainesurgeons

For further details contact Richard Astle on richard@athene-communications.co.uk

Group Harvest Festival on the 16th October

Many thanks to everyone for the many donations that were collected for Ukraine. We had a really great response and Richard was very grateful of your support. The donations were collected last Sunday, the 27th November, and will soon be on the way to their destination. The food will be delivered to Gliwice in early December, reaching the front line communities before Christmas. Please include the Richard, the volunteers and the people of Ukraine in your prayers.

Our collection of items will be for the people of Ukraine, we have a friend, Richard, who will be driving down to make a delivery before Christmas.

Let us help to make it a better Christmas for the people in Ukraine in need of our help

Ukraine Christmas Appeal

Since March a team of local people and organisations has been delivering food to Ukrainian communities in Sumy Oblast, eastern Ukraine. So far they have made four deliveries, taking over 5 tonnes of food to a church in Gliwice, Poland, from where it is transported to another church in Rivne, western Ukraine, before being delivered to villages near Sumy. Videos on the groups Facebook page show the food on the various stages of its journey, from collection points around Peterborough and the Deepings to Poland and on to Ukraine.

The team are now hoping to make their largest delivery yet in time for Christmas or New Year. They have set up more collection points than ever before and are asking people to make a small donation of the following items before Sunday 27 November

RICE—FLOUR – PASTA – NOODLES – ANY TINNED GOODS

PARACETAMOL – SANITARY PRODUCTS

The food will then be delivered to Gliwice in early December, reaching the front line communities before Christmas. You can find out more about the project on the Facebook Page and Just Giving site

www.facebook.com/HelpingUkrainesSurgeons

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/helpingukrainesurgeons

For further detailks contact Richard Astle on richard@athene-communications.co.uk

Latest update items needed – 11 April

The items below are desperately needed for Ukraine. We will continue to collect these items along with medication/ first aid items and hygiene products as listed below. Please do NOT send any other items, particularly any textiles (bedding, sleeping bags, towels , blankets and clothes) as St Olga’s cannot take them at this time. Items can be left in the church porch. Thank you.

The hospitals in Ukraine are in URGENT need of baby care items!

Premature Nappies

Newborn & Size 1 Nappies

Baby Wipes

Nappy Rash Cream

Nappy Sacks

Following our visit to St Olga’s Church in Peterborough to take the village contributions- this is the latest list of item they are asking for.

The items they are now needing urgently are listed below- sorry it is not easier to read, they are not now taking blankets, sleeping bags or any other textiles only the most urgent items as listed ( though not now taking shoes, boots either).

Their 13th HGV has just gone out with a delivery in the last few days.

St Olga’s Church now have a bank account to help pay for transport and buy items that are difficult to source.