United Ukraine's Latest 💙💛

Plus: Kyiv's Tango Community Pitches In and More Babies!

Good afternoon partners! This is your mid-week update on what your donations funded and who you’ve helped. From our Saturday update through this morning, we’ve distributed an additional $3,927.64 to community leaders and families inside Ukraine. We’re always working on expanding our fundraising reach. We’re currently accepting speaking engagements before community organizations and podcast bookings to get our name out there. We’ve virtually done events in Port Townsend, Washington and San Diego, California this week alone. Our motto is “no venue is too small to talk about United Ukraine.” If you know an audience that might be receptive to United Ukraine’s message, please tell us. With your endorsement, we’ll make the time to show them why what we’re doing works. We’ve got plenty of local testimonials.

You make this happen, we’re just the conduit that gets it there. The best ways to support directly are

Via Debit, Credit, or Paypal:  At this link
Via Venmo: @UnitedUkraine (under the business tab)
Our Website: http://www.united-ukraine.org

And we accept checks via mail at:
225 Bright Poppy
Irvine, CA 92618

And now, here’s what we’ve been doing the last few days. As always, this is just a sample of what happens in any given week. We work hard because every day counts.

Ukraine’s Tango Community Proves Art is Strong

One of our best contacts since day one has been Sergiy, a tango teacher and event organizer from Ivano-Frankivsk, that has been tirelessly collecting food and supplies and making deliveries all across the country. In week seven of the war, the scale of these projects keeps getting bigger to match the need, and Sergiy is starting to operate at near industrial capacity. Sergiy’s dropped everything, his entire previous livelihood and social life, to help his community. You’re helping Sergiy.

Your donations find their way to Sergiy’s work through us because we know Sergiy personally. The handsome devil on the right is United Ukraine co-founder Nathan. We keep in contact with Sergiy every week to make sure he stays supplied.

And funding Sergiy’s work matters. In addition to bringing food and medicine straight to people’s homes, Sergiy’s team has opened a distribution center in his hometown where families visit every day for critical supplies. You can see some of their work below.

Sergiy isn’t the only tango enthusiast pitching in for Ukraine. If you’ve ever met a tango dancer, then you know they are intense about their brutally difficult hobby. In Kyiv, they won’t stop dancing even for air raid sirens. So it comes as no surprise that Ukraine’s tango community is showing up in a big way to raise money for medical equipment currently in short supply throughout Ukraine. Meet Santiago and Kseniia, who are working with Nathan to source and procure equipment from all over the world.

Santiago and Kseniia have already raised more than $15,000 to buy items the Ukrainian government says are of “infinite need:” tourniquets, Israeli Dressings, polycarbonate eye shields, nitrile gloves, and more. United Ukraine has developed logistics and importation expertise throughout this crisis and we’re working with them to handle purchasing and delivery. Our core mission has always been to help Ukrainians help themselves. To that end, our co-founder Nathan has pledged to match up to $5,000 in donations earmarked for Santiago’s and Kseniia’s medical purchases. Any donation sent in for this purpose will be set aside separately and doubled by United Ukraine. Just write “For Santiago” or “For Tango” in the notes section of your donation and we’ll take care of the rest.

United Ukraine Focuses on Nikolaev’s Water Crisis

Nikolaev was recently cut off from running water after the destruction of a crucial pipeline during fighting near Dnipropetrovsk. Our partners know about these problems in real time because they know the people that live in these cities. So their solution is to simply start buying water and generators and truck them into Nikolaev to help. The water is direct relief, and the generators power local desalination equipment that is already in the area. Your donations help purchase both.

We’ve also gotten direct support to families from Nikolaev that are doing their best to find a way to stay inside their own country because it’s their home. Irina’s (left) apartment building on the outskirts of town was hit by shelling. It’s still intact but lost all its windows during a cold April. Your donations have helped make critical repairs to Irina’s walls so that she and her cat Lana still have a place to live.

Alina (right) is make-up artist in Nikolaev. She and her husband, Vova, were only married two months before the Russian invasion. Now her husband and her father are defending the country, and she was left alone with no running water. Your donations helped move Alina to safety with relatives in Poltava.

The Most Important Segment of Every Email

We know you come here for the families, because we do this for the families too. And yes, we’re bringing the goods. We’ve been focusing heavily on families from nearest Ukraine’s Donbass region this week and they are contacting us in droves looking for help. Each family here lived in Mariupol or Kharkiv just two months ago. All are now in Poland thanks to your support. Their moms reach out to me and let me know their opinions about local schools and their new neighbors. They never really chose to start a new life, but they’re grateful to have the chance now. To date your donations have moved over 100 families directly out of harms way and started them on a path to a new life. You helped give them that. It means a lot.

And we also have more exciting news. United Ukraine’s SECOND baby has arrived. Meet Denis and new mother Alyona.

Their village, Maidan-Kopishchenskiy, is just over the Belorussian border and was one of the first occupied by Russian troops during the initial invasion. Alyona was worried she’d have to give birth at home by herself. She’s only 21 years old. She was overwhelmed. Your donations in the first weeks of the war helped get her away from the fighting, in Rivne, where she was able to meet Denis for the first time in peace. Cheap at any price. Welcome to the world Denis.

Your vote of confidence matters more than you think. Our biggest bursts of fundraising have come because people have sent our messages to their friends and family. People are looking for ways to give direct and immediate support to real people inside Ukraine. Please help us show them how to do it.

As always, from me to you, thank you for helping us do this work.

-Adam