Students join forces, working around the clock, to support Ukrainian refugees

On Thursday, Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine to launch a continuous full-scale invasion. Russian forces have left Ukrainians homeless and buildings as rubble. As of Wednesday, March 23, there are an estimated 3.6 million refugees that have fled Ukraine and 6.5 million displaced within the country, according to the UN Migration Agency. Poland, Ukraine’s close ally that shares a 332-mile border, has welcomed more than 2 million refugees, according to the UN Refugee Agency, providing free health care and other benefits. However, the refugees still need help. Where do they go from there? What do they do next?

These are questions the Bozeman-based organization Ukraine Relief Effort (URE) is trying to answer. Karolina Konieczna, a graduate student in architecture from Poland, started working to help her friends and family from afar. She has been working day and night to provide funding and organizational support to a network of different Polish contacts to support refugees both in Ukraine and Poland. Cassie Birch, an environmental science major who also has contacts in Poland, and Brian McKeithan, an English major, joined forces with Konieczna and created the URE.

“There’s so many people coming in right now,” Konieczna said. “We had more than 2 million right now come to Poland. That’s already, you know, it’s a humongous amount. This is like two times Montana comes over here, no housing, no nothing. It’s just you know, they need help.”

She explained how difficult it can be for refugees to receive government support, as it takes months for laws and registration to pass. Poland prepared for the conflict, however, the war has rapidly taken its toll on both Ukraine and Poland. “The help is coming from the volunteers from Poland and it comes from people who are already out there,” Konieczna said. “So, you know, we have to act fast.”

As much help as Ukraine needs, it doesn’t take a lot to help this organization, Birch said. “Some of our biggest days of donations have been mostly $10, $15, just from lots and lots of people,” Birch said. “That’s kind of what counts, and we’re not asking anyone to go into debt for this, we just need a little bit of help from a lot a bit of people.”

The organization’s top priority is to be transparent about where the money goes from the donations it receives. “It’s really important to us to make sure that people who are donating to us can see where their money is going, because that’s why we got involved in this,” Birch said. The organization also encourages donations to other charities. “We’re not sending [the money] into cyberspace, we’re sending it to contacts that we know and trust or contacts that our contacts know and trust,” Birch said. “There’s really no time to be just like hoping that your money gets there at this point, and so we’re really hoping the website will help people also trust what we’re doing because we’re trying to be as clear as possible.”

“We’re just focused on humanitarian work right now,” McKeithan said. “The direct donations are nice because they’re flexible, so people can buy whatever they need and whatever they can buy over there. So that’s like the immediate thing and pairing with businesses will really help us ramp that up.”

URE began taking donations on March 4 and has since raised a total of $4,859. These donations are sent to URE of Odessa, a city located in Ukraine, which is providing food, clothing, hygiene kits, first aid kits and other supplies. The donations will also go toward maintaining the organization's stationed ambulance, medical supplies for an EMT traveling to the Ukraine/Poland border and gas for their drivers to transport necessities to Ukrainian refugees.

The organization has also been working with local medical clinics to send supplies to Ukraine. “Our goal is to set up a supply chain of medical supplies and get them into Poland by sending them to Virginia, where there’s an organization called Crisis Response International that already has planes going to Poland,” McKeithan said. “So we can just gather supplies here, send them there, and then they’ll ship them over and right now things that are needed most are medical supplies.”

Donations and supplies are crucial for the URE, but its service doesn’t end there. Konieczna has been connecting people in need with those who are willing to help. “So I have right now, this group where I’m in and in the beginning we were trying to get out people and bring supplies inside wherever it’s needed,” Konieczna said. “Wherever it’s needed, to train stations or to borders — most of the borders — and to Lviv. It’s a city in Ukraine. It’s very close to Poland, and for now they’re not bombing there.” Konieczna also said the URE has a woman stationed on the border, driving through war zones to transport supplies into Ukraine and bring people out. This woman drives an RV back and forth across the border to transport milk to orphanages, supplies to a refugee center in Odessa and other necessities to those in need. “She is our coordinator, and she took that huge RV with ten thousand euros worth of medical supplies worth to use,” Konieczna said. “And she went to pick up a family and came back. You know, this is a hero of our heroes. And this is our group.”

Since the start of the war, Konieczna has been working tirelessly to connect people in need with people who want to help. “I just wanted to emphasize that when I met [Karolina], she was doing so, so much of the actual coordinating people with her people,” Birch said. “She’s getting them connected with her network. More Polish friends and so many phone calls would be just like ‘how many people? Where are they? When do they need to leave? Where do they want to go?’ It’s just insanity.”

The group emphasized the need for quick action in a time of war.

To learn how to donate or volunteer visithttps://www.ukrainereliefeffort.org. For updates: Facebook@UkraineReliefEffort