The UKi Relief Fund continues to work, provide humanitarian aid and support the Ukrainian residents and military. Our newest friend from the USA, Chris Tiller, has arrived to help Ukraine and met up with our volunteer – Oles Khudoba, who assisted him with his mission. And now he is heading to assist people in need in Kharkiv.
Message from Chris Tiller to our donors
We founded a group called Renegade Relief Runners and have been driving aid deep into the East of Ukraine, within 9 miles of the Russian border. I am establishing a Tennessee-based nonprofit, but in the meantime, we are functioning solely on whatever donations we can attract. Â
Our operation focuses primarily on underrepresented communities in the deep east with no existing substantial supply chain. We are setting up warehouse space in specific important cities. We have organizations donating an available truck space, palletizing, and moving our bulk donations more efficiently to distribution points from where our team can collect and go.
We also are good at sourcing things for free and trying to stretch the penny by purchasing within Ukraine when necessary to help boost the economy. If you want to stretch a dollar a mile, we’ll take it a mile and a half. Â
Our team was also involved in a rocket attack in Kharkiv last week that killed 12 people. We were luckily unharmed, but our vans took some damage, and we used the bulk of our available medical supplies and IFAKs to triage the wounded civilians. We saved two lives who would have lost too much blood by the time paramedics arrived and bought a third who had lost two limbs and taken shrapnel through the abdomen enough time to get to the hospital. Also, we towed off a military vehicle with four guys whose car the Russians had disabled in the blast.
We are looking for a minimum of $1,000 a month or $30,000 a year to take care of expenses. Furthermore, my team is working on a list of deliverables to pitch to fundraisers, outlining our operational costs and, for example, what it would cost to bring 10,000 lbs. of food to a village in the deep east.
Monthly or yearly deliverables:
- $5000 funds our safe house for a year
- $5000 funds our fuel budget for a month
- $3000 supplies #10’000 of food
- $1000 funds vehicle emergency maintenance for a month
- $300 buys a team member protective armor
- $300 buys/ refills an IFAK
- $300 feeds and houses the team on one mission
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We could also really use a blanket $20,000 operational budget to ensure the wheels keep moving in the meantime while the nonprofit gets up and running, and I can source other funds such as grants.
If any of these sounds feasible, I guarantee you my team is the real deal. There is no waste, little overhead, and the most extreme places with the most significant need. We would seriously appreciate any help you can offer.
