2022 Review & Into the New Year!

We just wanted to tell you about what our informal group has been doing in Ukraine for the last year.

Happy New Year to all!

We began as a grass-roots fundraising effort within days of the February 24th Russian invasion of Ukraine and made our first transfer of funds by mid-March, 2022. Our original and continuing purpose has been to support the [non-lethal] needs of the Ukrainian military and volunteer fighters, procuring what they request to be able to defend their country.

We never anticipated that we would still be working to support them 10 months later, but here we are, and as President Biden has said at least several times, we will be here “as long as it takes”. If you would like to join our efforts, or just to know more about what we are doing, there are a series of reports available and we are happy to provide further information, including ways to donate.

Firstly, who are we?

The effort began as a plea from two of Karen’s Ukrainian former LLM students, Oleksandr Sydielnikov and Svitlana Maistruk, for help in raising funds to support the fighters. Sasha and Svita are now married and have just had their first child, Ostap, born in Kyiv in December.

The rest of us are the “California Girls”, lifelong friends who decided to try to help: Susan , Debbie , Karen, and Nina.

What is the project?

We call the work we are doing “Project Dunkirk” to convey the impression of the multitude of civilian boats in World War II who contributed in a small way to the overall victory of the allies. We hope that our effort is contributing in the same way for an eventual Ukrainian victory.

What have we done so far?

The profile of our efforts has evolved over the last 10 months as the needs we are answering have changed. When we began, it was winter (like now) and we were purchasing winter clothing, sanitary supplies for women fighters, food, medicine and other basic supplies and helping to evacuate civilians from the war zones. That evolved into procurement of non-lethal support equipment, including night-vision scopes, vehicles, computers, gas masks and many other items.

We continue to raise funds for and purchase all of those items, and more, but given the utter destruction of the power infrastructure in Ukraine our focus is now on generators that can be used in the field by the fighters. As of the end of 2022, one has already been purchased and sent to the troops. Of the four additional generators that we currently have funds for, two will go to Bakhmut, where some of the fiercest fighting is ongoing.  This is the town that President Zelensky visited the day before his trip to Washington.

I am sure our priorities will change again before victory is achieved, but because of our flexibility and the amazing negotiating skills of our Ukraine-based partners, we are able to continually meet the needs and requests at substantial discounts.

How do we use the funds contributed?

Donor money is never wasted; none of it.

All our work on this is voluntary and no one receives any compensation for it. We have virtually no overhead, except for minimal wire transfer fees which we cover ourselves, so all donations go directly and fully into Ukraine. This has allowed us to buy a mountain of supplies and equipment for a relatively small US dollar amount.

There will be a full accounting and report of our first-year activities as soon after the New Year as we can manage. As a preview, our estimate is that we have collected a little under $45,000 which is the equivalent of nearly 1.8 million Ukrainian Hryvnia, which goes a long way in Ukraine and Poland, where almost all of our procurement takes place.

Are donations tax deductible?

Not yet. This is still a small, voluntary fund-raising effort and donations are not currently tax-deductible. We are contemplating turning this into a proper 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 2023, but only if it will not add substantially to overhead and if it could help raise sufficient further funds to cover any increase in overhead.

With all our best wishes for a happy and healthy New Year and the coming of peace and continued democracy and sovereignty to Ukraine.

Slava Ukraina!

Karen, Debbie, Susan, Nina, Oleksandr and Svitlana (and now, baby Ostap!)

UkraineReport_Jan23-nc.pdf

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