Week in Review - Ukraine Efforts

This past week was busy. Mike is feeling a bit better seemingly day by day. He isn’t really talking about his pain that much now and he’s able to sit at a table and eat. At his worst, he couldn’t even sit down in a chair.

Anyway…that being…he is getting geared up to head to Ukraine with a load of quilts. This one group wants 500 quilts! They work with refugees from eastern Ukraine and we are happy to help. Also, they are looking for fabric to make blankets and sheets - so I’ve had to expand my fabric looking to other types. Monday we are hoping to go back to the manufacturer of fabrics about 1.5 hours from here. I was looking locally for some fleece or soft microfiber fabric for blankets.

Here’s the review of the week.

Monday -

We had to do some shopping as I was providing some things for a group coming on Tuesday to pick up food, blankets and other supplies for children’s homes in Kharkiv - a part of Ukraine that has been attacked. We ended up giving them about 60+baby sets plus 30+ children’s quilt sets. We also worked on some quilt packets. Tim and Claire helped me put them together AND take them to the church.

We found these amazing quilts while we were packing things up. They were enough to make us stop and take photos. I mean, we have seen a LOT of wonderful quilts - but sometimes we are really pushing it and don’t stop.

Tuesday -

We went to the local wholesale place (s) and also the grocery store. I had done some shopping towards the end of last week as well.

We met at the church as the people (who were going to take things to Kharkiv) were supposed to be there at about 11. They called and said it would be closer to 12 or 1, so we just waited around. Tim and Claire were still here, so I asked them to come with me to the church to help load things up as the people were bringing a big van.

Here we are loading things up. We had collected things in the garage. In the end we were able to fill up about half of the van.

We then came home and after lunch I worked on some more blankets. Later Mike and I took them to to the church building and put them in the garage. Tim and Claire were starting to work on packing up.

Wednesday -

Tim and Claire left :( and we had another young man, Josiah, come to stay with us. How’s that for a sentence? Sounds easy, right? I was exhausted emotionally and physically and slept like a dead person that night without feeling like I did a thing except sort of wait around for flights - trying to be available if needed. To summarize a long day, my husband made two trips to the airport and a lot of checking on our newest guest. He finally arrived at our house at about 8 pm. This is Sat. and he still doesn’t have his luggage.

Thursday -

Josiah and I packed up vinyl bags. I knew he’d be kind of tired this day, so we we worked sort of low key. Below are photos of some daily deliveries and our bundles. The “Rick” boxes are pillows. Each box holds 10.

We have decided to just use the room in the basement for a couple of weeks. Hopefully in just a few days will take a LOT of quilts from the church and we can move them.

Friday -

In the morning Lena helped me by going fabric shopping with me. I was looking for fleece or microfiber so a group in central Ukraine can make blankets.

I was going to go to several places but two of the ones I wanted to check out were closed on Friday - one because they were closed for vacation and the other is only open Monday-Thursday. I ended up going to only one store. I had been there before - but had only purchased cotton at that time. This time, while they claimed to be wholesale, it really didn’t work out that way - they just give a bit of a discount if you buy more - but it’s not really much of a discount. However, it’s better than the other place I had checked out but was a half hour the other direction. I’ve written a company that produces fleece, but I think I’m running a bit late to be able to get it from there.

So far this is almost $1000 worth of fabric - but the quality is amazing. I’m very pleased. The best thing is - it is pretty close to home/church so I didn’t have to spend hours finding a place. One of the owners (? maybe) said he can get me more - Monday or Tuesday - so it can make the trip as we will load the trailer on Tuesday to head to Ukraine. We’ll give the ladies there both quilt sets and fabric so they can make blankets and sheets.

Anyway, this is what we ended up getting there.

I then said goodbye to Lena and asked if she could come back at 3 pm to help for a couple more hours. She could.

Lena and Ira came to help work on bags. And so we did - we were quite focused. I also showed them how to work on doing inventory of the boxes and match up pillowcases. That takes a load off of me. Both are Ukrainian refugees and desperately want things to do.

They worked for about 2-3 hours. With all the young legs, putting blankets in our basement isn’t as issue. :)

I asked if they could come back on Saturday. They said yes.

Saturday -

We finished up the boxes of quilts we had matched up with pillowcases the day before (well, THEY did it). I ended up having only 5 pillows left but I have more ordered - should start getting them in on Tuesday. In these pictures, at the bottom, you see Ira reading a note to Lena and then translating for her since Ira reads and speaks English - so she told Lena what the note said.

At current, this is where the room stands. The empty boxes are temporarily stored there to be used for the baby sets. I’ve saved the “medium sized boxes”. I may have saved too many - but we’ll flatten them and move them out as we need the space. Hopefully this is just for a few days - then we’ll move all the vinyl cases out of this room.

And there you are - it’s been an incredibly busy day with regards to Ukraine work - except for Wednesday!

Becky Petersen2 Comments