As Winter Nears, Local Aid To Ukraine Grows

As a young nurse training at Walter Reed Medical Center during the Vietnam War, Jane Ryzewski knows firsthand how much care and how many supplies are needed to help injured soldiers.

Which is why she joined three dozen fellow volunteers at the Ukrainian Catholic Church on George Street to organize and prepare to ship out an ever-growing assemblage of medical supplies and winter clothing to the front lines of another international conflict that is now in its ninth month.

Ryzewski, now retired and 80 years old, was one of 35 volunteers working tirelessly on Thursday night at at St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church at 569 George St.

The group hustled to assemble, label, weigh, and pack critical medical supplies, from walkers and wheelchairs to surgical curtains to adrenaline and saline solutions and life-saving blood-clotting powders and pads to be shipped to military hospitals in Ukraine.

And specifically to the Lviv Regional Hospital for soldiers and veterans in Vynnyky (near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv), to which the vital materials are being sent. 

All of which took place nearly nine months after Russia first invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and as many of the volunteers braced for colder weather and a potentially chillier American political environment towards the war-torn Eastern European country.

Ryzewski described on Thursday night how her training as a young nurse at Walter Reed treating soldiers injured in the Vietnam War served in part as motivation for her mission to volunteer at the Ukrainian church. 

She remembered how injured Vietnam War solders ​“were airlifted within 36 hours, spinal cord injuries, triple amputees.” She recalled how much care and how many supplies were needed.

“It hits home,” Ryzewski about what she’s read and seen and heard about the war in Ukraine.

It’s the eighth shipment since the Russian invasion in February, said the lead organizer Carl Harvey, who helped to establish and leads the Ukrainian American Veterans Post 33 in Orange, which is the fiduciary for contributions.

And there is a special sense of urgency to this one, Harvey added, because of the upcoming winter expected to be exceptionally harsh because of the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure.

And then there are politics. 

Even though the final results of Tuesday’s election are not yet in, Harvey said he is deeply concerned that U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro may be replaced as chair of the powerful Housing Appropriations Committee and ​“Kevin McCarthy has already said he will cut aid to Ukraine. They have no idea what this war is about.”

But the volunteers — both from the church membership and from neighboring towns and states — know exactly what it is about.

On Thursday, they were moving with urgency, bringing in literally hundreds of walkers, sets of crutches, wheelchairs, and hospital beds from temporary pods in the adjacent church parking lot inside the building because rain was expected.

Inside those items must each be tagged, and the contributions of clothing, many in plastic bags, along with all the medical supplies, must also all be boxed, and have a weight and cost estimate (for customs) written on a label and adhered, all before the big 18-wheeler arrives Saturday morning at 7:45 for packing.

Harvey said volunteers are very much needed (as are checks!) to help the loading of the truck. Just show up at 569 George St., and you can get to work.

That 18-wheeler is going to be driven by Mykola Blyzniuk, whose wife Galynia was busy alongside Ryzewski piling up boxes in the parish hall entryway. The couple and their three kids, who live now in Branford, arrived in the U.S. in 2014, in the aftermath of the Maidan protests in Ukraine and the Orange Revolution.

Harvey said when the truck is loaded, Mykola will drive it to New Jersey where the goods will be packed in a container by Dnipro LLC, a shipping company. Even though the company is Ukrainian owned, people need to be paid, and the cost is 79 cents a pound. The most recent shipment in October cost $17,000, and it was smaller than what volunteers were busily assembling on Thursday.

The container, shipped by sea to Europe, is then trucked through Poland to Lviv. With luck, said Harvey, the shipment arrives in four to six weeks.

The connections with the Lviv military hospital (which treats the families of veterans as well) all began in 2016 when Harvey, the post commander in Orange and active in veterans affairs in greater New Haven, went to Lviv with fellow church member Nadya Invantsiv. While he was there to help Ukrainians organize their veterans’ organization, he was taken to the military hospital and met Invantsiv’s relatives, including Father Roman Manulyak.

Father Manulyak is the direct contact at the Ukraine end who guarantees, Harvey said, that the supplies arrive safely and are distributed appropriately to the hospital .

Medical supplies and warm clothing can be dropped off at the church every Tuesday from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.; on Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 1:00 p.m.

Checks — to pay for the shipping and also the immense number of boxes, labels, rolls of tape and so forth — can be made out to Ukrainian American Veterans Post 33 and mailed to P.O. Box 972, Orange, CT 06477. Questions about the ongoing project, Harvey said, can be answered either by emailing cenbts64@gmail.com; or calling 203 – 848-4860.

The reputation — and effectiveness — of Harvey’s and St. Michael’s operation is growing. There is an increasing need not only for medical supplies and equipment but automobiles as well.

As this reporter left the church, Harvey showed him a small SUV parked beside the front steps. It is one of three vehicles that the group hopes will be shipped not in Saturday’s container but the next month to Ukraine. 

Have a car to spare, anyone?

The vehicles need to be in working order, of course, said Harvey, but also be suitable to transport wounded soldiers from the front lines to the hospitals.