One does not simply....

A glimpse into the behind the scenes legwork of aid delivery

This is Nathan, for the first time ever doing the end-of-week update for reasons that became will become clear as I explain.

The first important announcement is that we’ve sent out over $20,000 ($21,531.74 + shipping of emergency medical supplies. Among those medical supplies are tourniquets and one of the things we've learned in doing this is that you don't just send tourniquets. It turns out that getting tourniquets right is an incredibly challenging problem. There can be tourniquets that are unsuitable and there can be tourniquets of higher and lower qualities. And if you're like us and you mostly just buy things from large online stores you might think it's as easy as clicking a button on the website but it turns out tourniquets are generally delivered by highly specialized distributors that are accustomed to having the higher level of civilian demand that they've seen as a result of the Ukraine crisis. Because of this the supply chain for tourniquets has been overwhelmed leading to an incredibly difficult situation in the procurement of tourniquets. We’ve had to negotiate with many suppliers before finding one that could deliver what we needed on time.

We've learned a lot about tourniquets at one point Santiago, who has dedicated himself passionately to supporting the effort, was reading through academic medical papers while co-founder Adam was reviewing Department of Defense recommendations while being in connection with our grass-roots partner Anna in Ukraine who was actually reviewing and doing experiments with tourniquets in the field. So you can imagine how happy we were to finally get these tourniquets out the door and on their way to Ukraine. But once again nothing is quite as simple as you would imagine now we are shipping out over 160 kg of medical supplies into a country that's currently at war and this isn't something you can just do with a standard shipper.

So after we had sent our package with a specialized shipper we thought that was the end of it. But it turned out that once we looked at the tracking we noticed the package wasn't leaving Los Angeles. Adam made some inquiries and it turned out all the employees of the annex where we dropped off the package had gone on vacation Adam made a sudden decision the day of to take a three-hour trip to go and re-package the supplies and take them with the employers of the shipping company to a different annex in a different city to get them shipped out as absolutely soon as possible. This is at a time when he's extremely busy with his day job.

I think Adam is too humble to brag about the extraordinary lengths he's been willing to go to in order to help people but I'd like to say it here. So as a result of Adam’s heroic actions he's getting a day off from writing this update and I hope you can join me in thanking him for the absolutely extraordinary effort that he took to get the supplies to people in need.

We also had our first payout this week from the employer giving matching portal Benevity. This turned a $1,000 donation into a $2,000 donation and will have a huge impact on the work that Sergiy

Sergiy shows off another shipment of supplies

In addition to the $21,531.74 in medical supplies, we’ve also sent out $4,998.40 to families and grassroots organizations like Sergiy’s in Ukraine.

And we help familes from Kherson such as Maria and her daughter Elizaveta

They have been living in that cellar at friends house in Dnipro since they left the area since it was the only place they could get lodging on short notice.

Obviously they couldn’t abandone their cat. And her’s the basement they’ve been living in:

The ladder to get in

The entrance to the basement

Basement interior

They were living in that basement for almost two months, we funded deposit on a new apartment, Maria just got a job at a flower grower for florists.

What we’re doing is a great privilege and passion to be able to help so many people and it’s been made possible by the generosity and desire to help of people like you. Our goal is to make sure all your money goes to where it’s doing good, and we thank you for letting us continue this service.