Our Defenders need your attention

By Andrii

My name is Andrii. I’m from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. This city is located near the wonderful mountains – the Carpathians. 

Before the full-scale invasion, I actively taught children and adults to dance. Every week we went to competitions, master classes. We lived a carefree life. And now, many students have moved abroad, many dance couples have broken up, competitions are not held so often. 

In the first days of the war, together with my wife and friends, we began to actively help people who were fleeing the war from eastern and central Ukraine. We looked for housing for them, helped them with food and clothes. 

Why did I volunteer? It is difficult to answer this question. On February 25, 2022 (the day after the full-scale invasion), I felt that I had to do something to help. I remember that in the morning my military friend called me and said that I urgently needed to find sleeping bags or mattresses, as many military men have arrived and there are no available places for them to spend the night.

And so it all began. 

Many friends supported me and we began to help both the military and displaced persons.

Our Defenders need our attention very much.

More than once I saw the tears of soldiers when they read children’s postcards. It seems like a small thing, but for them it is something more.

I would really like the whole world to know – Ukraine continues to live, we do not give up, we move on. 

In the break between work, we run to the warehouse, buy everything necessary for the military, look for drones, for starlinks, for example, and send them to our Defenders. And then we return to our work. 

Honestly, after our victory, and it will be very soon, it will be very unusual for us that we no longer need to volunteer, that we do not need to sit on the phone for hours to look for a car for the military to the east, that we do not need to look for housing for displaced people. Although even before the war, my friends and I helped shelters with animals and a nursing house. 

After the victory, I believe and know that the number of tourists will increase. Together, we will climb the largest mountain of the Carpathians, Hoverlu, swim in the Black Sea, take a walk along the Khreschatyk in Kyiv, and invite everyone to my mother’s for borscht and dumplings.

Thank you for your daily support of our Ukraine.

Cards and supplies arrive at the front.

You can send your written postcard messages of support to Ukraine’s Defenders to the below address. Need some tips to get started? Click here. Thank you for your support!

Postcards to the Front
P. O. Box 184
Millbrook, ON L0A 1G0 Canada