Relief Effort

How Canadian volunteers are helping in Ukraine

- Sydney Loney

ON FEBRUARY 28, 2022, four days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Alyssa Martschenko, a 22-yearold recent university graduate, began spending nine hours a day in a small warehouse in Toronto, managing donations and sorting and packing BandAids, alcohol wipes, medical tape, gauze and more. She was one of several volunteers who answered the call of Help Us Help, a Ukrainian-Canadian charitable organization.

Before the invasion, Help Us Help had focused on providing education and humanitarian aid to some of Ukraine's 200,000 orphans and 42,000 veterans and their families. Now, the more pressing need is to get emergency triage kits to volunteer medics treating wounded civilians after bomb and missile strikes. As of early April, the organization had shipped 300 boxes, in total weighing more than five tonnes.

Martschenko, who has extended family in Ukraine, takes comfort in knowing she's making a difference. "We have someone on the ground to receive the shipments and we know they're getting to the people who need them," she says.