As we continue to expand our efforts to reach more people willing to help we want to remind those who may not be familiar with our cause and our background.
Nadiia was born and grew up in Nova Kahovka, Ukraine. After their 2 year of dedication and determination through the US K1 Visa process Jarred and Nadiia, in 2018, were able to finally marry on St Pete Beach FL and now living on Plum Island, Newburyport MA where they happily call home.
Nadiia’s ties to Ukraine remain strong as her parents, sister and her sister’s family as well as her friends and their families all live in Ukraine.
Watching the Russian invasion and subsequent devastation that began on February 24th, 2022 is heartbreaking. Nova Kahovka was one of the first major cities in the southeast of Ukraine the Russian military occupied on day 1 of the war. Both Nadiia and Jarred immediately began organizing an effort to help those stuck inside her home town of Nova Kahovka, Ukraine which has a population of over 40,000 people. What emerged from these efforts is Nova Kahovka for Life; An assembly of local Ukrainian in-country trusted team members who buy and distribute food & essentials to carefully vetted people in need, all under the directive of Nadiia and Jarred.
Our Progress | April 14th 2022
We are now 42 days into our fundraising efforts. With your help, we have been supplying food and essentials to people in need all over the city. Since March 3rd to date we have transferred over $40,000 into our local Ukrainian bank account and with it have been purchasing food, essentials, and medicines. Because of this we have been able to maintain a steady stream of delivers to over 1500 people.
Each day our volunteers encounter new dangers. The Russian Military continue to build up their presence in downtown Nova Kahovka and we are now seeing Russian military camps in local forests where they have cut swathes of trees to accommodate their tents and equipment.
Yesterday, Nadiia’s sister traveled with her husband’s parents from their village in Nyzhni Sirohozy to Nova Kahovka to pick up food and medicines from our supplies storage for their village. Typically, if we were to visit this village it would take an hour and a half drive, but now with Russian checkpoints along the road travel time is almost doubled each way.
We have also been able to coordinate with a local contact closer to Mar’yans’ke (a village northeast of Nova Kahovka) to get another small supply of medicines. The drive from Nova Kahovka is about 4.5 hours (with all the checkpoints) along the southern side of the Dinpro river traveling northeast. Once arriving, on the opposite side of the river from this town, they use boats to bring families fleeing from Mariupol’ to this village. We are able to use these boats to transfer our medicines.
In the last few weeks there has been an outflow of minivans and cars full of refuges from Nova Kahovka and surrounding areas trying to make the arduous journey to Poland. To give you a sense of distance this trip would take over 17 hours by car non-stop under normal conditions, currently the trip is taking over 30 hours due to Russian checkpoints on the occupied territories. Elderly, disabled, women with very young children, and many others are choosing to stay behind as they don’t feel confident they could endure or risk such a trip.
As the Ukrainian Military move south toward the Russian occupied cities and towns our volunteers have also been setting up bomb shelters with essentials in the event the fighting becomes too close for people to stay at home. It is a worse case scenario but as we see what happening in other parts of Ukraine where fighting is we want to be prepared for everything.
Our challenges change with each day as we deliver what we can but the truth is, even with all your generosity we are only able to supply food and essentials to just over 1500 people. Currently we are receiving requests from over 1800 people. This is forcing us to deliver less food to more people. It is truly heartbreaking knowing the reality of how many people are going hungry.
We do thank everyone who has already supported us. We wanted to send out another request to anyone you may know that may have already donated to bigger organizations that may be willing to help our cause as well.
Big International organizations are helping refugees and people in some parts of Ukraine that are not under Russian occupation, but there are so many people stuck in these occupied territories which these organizations cannot reach.
All we can do is keep pushing forward and collectively think of new ways to raise money and keep delivering to those in need. Thank you for your time and donations!
Every dollar makes a difference.
Nadiia and Jarred
Ukrainian Word of the Day
Hi (Hello) Typically said to people you already know
Привіт
Pronunciation: Phonetic “Pryvit”
{The “y” is pronounced using the sound “ee” in Street}
