Hello, I’m Robbie and that’s my best friend Peter driving! We've been assisting Ukraine whilst they are being invaded by Russian forces! WE NEED YOUR HELP!
This all started a few weeks after the invasion took place, my best friend (Pete) text me one day asking if I would like to go help and within 4 days we where on the road with a 2002 Citroen relay mini bus! We left from Monmouth, Wales on the 8th of March to Siedliska, Poland where we grouped up with fellow vollenteers we met on Reddit in an air bnb on the Polish side of the Ukrainian border! On our way from the UK we stopped a few times to pick up various supplies from other Redditor’s so we didn’t arrive with an empty van!
Once we arrived after a 2 day journey across Europe we settled in with the team of volunteers immediately and the very next day we hit the road delivering our full bus of supplies and even evacuating a family! We really dived in at the deep end and the momentum never stopped from day one. We where out there for a month and we ran our bus every single day and both myself and Peter where happily working 20 hours a day most days and neither of us regret a single second, in fact we’ve left a big part of us there and our minds and hearts are truly with Ukraine!
We’ve never traveled or done any form of volunteering for humanitarian aid so we really didn’t know what to expect and originally we set out to only be there for a week to two weeks but this turned into a month and honestly I wish I never had to leave, although the days where long and the drives where hundreds and hundreds of miles long we feel as though we where made to do this and the month felt like short week.
We operated every single day we spent out there and everyday we will deliver vital supplies too charities, churches, bases and community centres! most days we would take in a full van! we really pushed our old girl (our van) to her limits and she never let us down! not only did we deliver supplies but she's a mini bus with 13 seats so we also evacuated up to 10 people a day! Some days i would drive 5-6 hours into Ukraine deliver supplies, evacuate refugees bring them to the border to swap with Pete where he would drive the evacuees 5-6 hours into Poland to then resupply and bring a full load back to swap again, he would arrive back at our base at around 05:00 sometimes and i would be leaving at around 06:00 to do it all over again.
Both myself and Peter are fully determined to go back to continue helping! Along our journey we have made countless contacts for humanitarian and military aid through networking! Myself, Peter and our beloved Citroen Relay delivered tonnes and tonnes of supplies from humanitarian, pet aid and even military aid! And we evacuated around 200 people out of Ukraine into Poland and even one family as far as Duisburg, Germany!
We’ve been back in the U.K. since the 12th of April and all we can think about is Ukraine and what else we can do to help and we’re going to need as much help from our fellow humans so we can not only go back and continue the great work we have already done, but go back and do even better and for longer! Please help us to keep helping Ukraine!
We're still assisting the team we helped build in Poland from the U.K, While we’ve been back we’ve sourced supplies hard to find such as level 4 body armour which has been procured and sent to Poland where we will deliver these items directly and them to for our own safety. We also have a warehouse here in the uk, we're going to fill our van with humanitarian aid and drive back Ukraine with a full van.
It was very hard to leave but we needed money and our jobs are the only source for this income!
We genuinely can’t wait to go back and regardless me and Peter will be leaving the U.K. to drive back to Ukraine on the 7th of May. We can continue to help on our budget for around 1 month but we really need your help to allow us to keep that aid flowing into Ukraine!
Your donations will be huge for us as your money goes a very long way in Poland and Ukraine so it could mean a tank of gas for 1 day, Primarily we will be spend our money on diesel, vehicle maintenance as well as a safe place for us to sleep at night, We would like to look at solutions to allow us to deliver more items more efficiently and things we can donate that are needed urgently.
The situation in Ukraine seems to be on going and we can’t predict when these atrocities will end but Pete and I have discussed our goals moving forward. Ideally the war will be over today and we can start looking at getting people back home, funding to help rebuild, delivery of building materials and so on! We are looking towards the future while delivering vital and essential help today but as we speak the russian military is invading Ukraine, murdering civilians and destroying rich history. So right now we will do everything in our power and our skill set to assist them. We have set up many supply chains into Ukraine and are always working on more! We are determined and motivated and we simply cannot be held down by full time jobs in the U.K. when our hearts are in Ukraine.. We've also discussed setting up supply links in Romania so we can have teams working in Poland and Romania.
We're humans helping humans, all of us!
Thanks for taking the time to read my post!
Kind reguards, Robbie!