The Beginning

Like many others, in February of 2022 we watched the news in disbelief when Russia invaded Ukraine. As a group of immigrants, children of immigrants, and descendants of immigrants from Ukraine, we felt that we couldn’t sit idle and needed to take action immediately to help.

We founded a grass-roots non-profit society based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, called the YEG4UKRAINE Humanitarian Aid Foundation to raise money, purchase, and transport urgently needed medical supplies to Ukraine.

As a small and motivated group, we acted quickly and efficiently, responding to needs as they arose to put supplies into the hands of those who need them in record time – a contrast to many other large-scale organizations with greater overhead burden. With an outpouring of community support, we were able to collect a large amount of supplies and started shipping supplies to Ukraine by the end of February. Over the course of the next month, we would pack suitcases full of medical and tactical first aid supplies and send them with volunteers who would fly the suitcases to Poland for transport into Ukraine. We set up a network who drives the supplies across the boarder and directly to hospitals and field hospitals on the front lines. Fortunately we received pictures and videos within just a few days of our supplies arriving and being used!

A group from our team also personally traveled to Poland at the beginning of April 2022, taking 56 large suitcases and duffle bags full of supplies. They then stayed on the Poland-Ukraine border for almost 3 weeks working at refugee centers, procuring and moving supplies, and transporting refugees to safety.

Early Progress

Meet the Team

Todays Focus

With a strong team and transport network in place, we are continuing our efforts to procure and transport the most urgently needed supplies to Ukraine. Sometimes these supplies are donated to us here in Alberta, and others we procure locally, or from suppliers in the US and Europe. We seek the best value and negotiate to ensure the funds we collect are stretched and transportation costs are reduced as much as possible. We only accept and procure items that have been directly requested by medical teams, government bodies and NGO’s in Ukraine.

Currently we are fundraising for medical equipment, as well as to purchase ambulances in Europe which are desperately needed to transport the injured in Ukraine.