CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Alex Zatvor is executive director of a Chicago-based nonprofit called Gate to Ukraine, which helps Ukrainian families. On Sunday, he stood in Millennium Park with a shiny piece of metal in his hands.
“This is a piece of an actual tank gun barrel from a tank that we have in Ukraine, and this is the first part of this big project,” Zatvor said. “We’ve produced 500 of these pieces, and we’re selling them to fundraise for these families.”
Zatvor said it was a 14-hour journey to get the tank from the warzone to a factory where they could strip it down to parts.
“It came out of this wild idea that we had, thinking, ‘What’s more symbolic than this brutal, barbaric, hunk of metal that came to destroy these families?’” Zatvor said. “The idea was we could … cut it into pieces and then raise money to help those families instead.”
So far, they have raised more than $220,000 for 2,000 Ukrainian families.
“People from all over the world have a part of this exact tank. One day, a lot of these people will be thinking back to this time as the time when the world came together for this cause.”
Zatvor said the unity of the Ukrainian people was “remarkable,” and he added that their resolve and perseverance inspired those at Gate to Ukraine.
“Despite everything they’ve had to live through … the blackouts, the lack of heat, and obviously everything they’ve had to go through with the war, but the message is so unanimous across the board: Every one of them would rather have this but keep their freedom, than have it stop and … live under Russian occupation,” he said.
Related
Related
Listen to WBBM Newsradio now on Audacy!