One Fort Worth police lieutenant is using his vacation time to help Ukrainian refugees who had fled to his native country.
"I had a vacation plan to go to France and Barcelona," Lt. Pawel Nabiolek said, who was born in Poland. "But when the war broke out, I decided that it was going to be inappropriate to celebrate a vacation somewhere else in Europe when a country's being attacked like this so close to home."
So instead, he is spending his time off in Poland assisting in a refugee center near the Ukrainian border.
"This refugee center here is a small town that's having to solve big world problems," Nabiolek said. "This is as busy as they have ever been, with the most people ever coming into their little city."
Nabiolek has been volunteering non-stop since arriving at the center.
"I'll pick up trash, I'll clean the bathrooms, (and) I'll hand out soup," Nabiolek said. "I had a Nintendo Switch, and I would play video games with these kids."
Various countries in Europe are sending buses to the refugee center to take the refugees back to their countries. But the refugee center where Nabialek is volunteering at would only announce the buses by loud speaker, and that proved to be inefficient.
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"They just did not have the budget to buy a 65-inch television," Nabiolek said. "And I said, 'Let's go to the store right now, and let's get one.'"
After buying that television, Nabiolek helped hook it up and set it up so that it clearly displays bus information in real-time.
Refugees are also being sent to small villages that can only be reached by car.
"Depending on how much money I had that I could spend, I was just going to offer my rental car and drive people to different cities," Nabiolek said.
The Polish people have welcomed Nabiolek with open arms.
"I was going to sleep in the car or inside the center myself," Nabiolek said, "but I had one of the volunteers ask me if I wanted to stay with his mother."
As for how the refugees are doing, Nabiolek says they're holding up as best as they could.
"They're doing as well as they can, when you consider the fact that they have nothing, and their husbands and dads are not here; they're in Ukraine," Nabiolek said. "The one thing that I notice is how sure they are that Ukraine will win the war."
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