JENKINTOWN, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Hundreds of volunteers have gathered in Jenkintown for the fourth day of packing thousands of boxes of supplies to send directly to Ukraine as the Russian invasion there reaches its second week.
“My day doesn't start from drinking coffee anymore. It starts from asking if my family and my friends are alive," said Yuliya Stupen of Northeast Philadelphia.
She is among those who have been working nonstop at the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center in Jenkintown, a bustling hub of activity this week. The efforts are expected to continue at least through Wednesday.
“From morning till 8 p.m., 9 p.m., we are here packing boxes, labeling them," saud Yuliana Fartschuk. She has spent most of her hours the last several days assistingthe efforts.
“I come here, so that I have something to do, so I don't cry at home all the time.”
Coordinator Diana Karnuta is originally from Kyiv and has lived in the U.S. for only two years. She said she wakes up every morning wondering if her family back home is safe.
"Each single day you wake up and go through your phone for the news and check up on friends and family just to make sure they’re alive," she shared.
When she does manage to connect with her family, she said she hears the fear in their voices. "[I hear] how my relatives and friends are in fear of being dead," she said.
"You're in [an] anxious state because you don't know what's going to happen next, whether or not they're going to be alive."
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“Unity is our power right now,” said Olga Mykhaylyuk, president of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America's Philadelphia region. She helped organize this supply drive.
“In the beginning, we thought it's only a couple people will come...every day, we have approximately 250, 300 volunteers.”
Stupen explained that all donations are immediately sorted.
Related audio: How Ukrainians in the Delaware Valley are finding comfort from the food of their homeland.
“Here, we have personal hygiene. We have diapers in the back. We have all medicine on this table. We have food. We have army stuff, like walkie talkies, kneepads, thermals," said Stupen, who added that after seeing the organization's requests on social media, people are clearing shelves at local stores to buy up supplies.
"The amount of support from non-Ukrainians and the community is just overwhelming.”
She said she’s very worried about this war.
“My friends, some of them went to fight," Stupen explained.
"They're my age. I'm 19.”
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She said she hopes for peace, but not at the cost of Ukrainian freedom.
“In our anthem it goes, 'A freedom over our dead bodies or our dead souls.'”
And Karnuta said if she can't be on the battlefield, she'll do what she can from Jenkintown, packing and sending food and supplies she knows will keep her people strong. "In my heart, Kyiv will always be my home," she said.
Yuriy Didura of Willow Grove explained that the operation is set up in a hall that’s usually used for festivities.
“But for times like this, it has to be transformed into something more," he said.
He said he volunteers to keep from thinking about the horrors of war.
"It kind of takes your mind off of it, with the hustle and bustle that's happening here," he explained.
“If I'm not taping, I'm carrying; if I'm not carrying, I'm making labels.”
But he said it’s not easy to stop thinking about what his fellow Ukrainians are experiencing abroad right now.
“Packing these diapers is so touching," Didura explained. "There's children that are in bomb shelters. They're going to be playing in rubble. And so everything gets rebuilt."
As he admitted, "It's going to be a whole different Ukraine from what it was before.”
KYW Newsradio's Shara Dae Howard contributed to this story.
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Related audio: An analysis of the incredible gravity of the Russian invasion into Ukraine.
