Dear friends and supporters,
Once again, I have failed miserably in my quest to keep you updated on what we are doing.
I had hoped to have the time to do at the least, a monthly blog, but my last one was 10 months ago!
It is hard to know what to write, as I do not want to bore you with more long tales of overnight drives and shady customs offices!
So, I have been scratching my head for the past few months to try and come up with something interesting to write about.
And then Anna Feschenko wrote a post on Facebook about our last mission and the penny dropped, the lightbulb went on and I suddenly knew what to write about!!
But more about that in a minute!
First of all, the big news, our thirteenth mission is now official, we leave on 10th August, with another two cars!
Why 13? Well it comes after 12! (a film quote that ties in with our motto, Failure is not an option)
Our friends in the British Army have worked long and hard to get two more cars ready for us.
They do all of this work in their spare time, fixing cars that have no business going to the corner shop let along all the way across Western Europe.
They fix up suspension, service them, replace any parts that need replacing.
For no other reason that they want to help Ukraine.
They work at the Royal School of Artillery Larkhill base on Salisbury plain, literally a mile away from Stonehenge.
Many Ukrainian troops passed through this school and our friends have many Ukrainian friends fighting at this moment.
The Guns they use have been sent from this base, and they are still helping them now.
I want to say a huge thank you to Neil, Phil, Rob and Adam. We could not do these missions without your help.
You are truly part of the team, and we are thankful to have you all onboard.
Last but not least, they always manage to help fill up the cars with absolutely essential aid for the guys.
Ukraine UK Aid have been invited to speak at the Larkhill Open Day in July where we will be explaining to the base what we do and why we do it. We are hoping to raise a lot of money from this event.
We will be making a big shout out as usual a few weeks before we leave for items from the Amazon Wish List, but in the meantime, please keep buying from our store!
So, where is all the money going I hear you ask?
Obviously, cars, spare parts, tax, fuel and ferry costs take a pretty big chunk of the cash.
Each X-Trail burns around £400 of fuel to get to it’s destination. We never hand the cars over with empty tanks!
But we still have money left over, thanks to all your purchases.
We hate the idea of sitting on cash that could be used, and two months or so between missions is a long time to wait to help, so we came up with the idea of helping our friends Olena and Anna.
They get involved in many collections in Ukraine for specific pieces of equipment.
Drone Jammers, Night Vision Goggles, cars etc, the list is endless.
And what we do is help them to close these collections.
Sometimes they are just a few £100 away from having enough money.
Sometimes they are a long way away.
Whatever amount of money they need, we send directly to Olena and then literally the next day, the item is purchased and off to the soldier who asked for help.
Each person they help is personally known to them and trusted 100%
Helping in this way makes a huge difference to our friends as a shortfall of £100 is a huge mountain for them to climb.
I hope you all approve of us helping in this way. We try to make sure we only ever have enough money banked to cover the cost of the upcoming mission. This way you know your purchases from the store are helping in a very targeted and immediate way!
And this leads me nicely back onto Olena and Anna.
From my last blog I introduced you to our dear friends. I first met Olena and Anna in May 2022, not long after their village had been liberated.
Over time, we have created something very special. They give us items to sell and in return we bring aid back into Ukraine.
From literally one suitcase and a very clunky e-bay store to the amazing Shopify store that David Barrett has built and financed himself.
We have hundreds of unique items all donated to us and every time we visit Olena and Anna, we are given the most amazing presentation of items they have gathered over the past two months.
Each presentation surpasses the last in terms of quality and numbers! It is hard to believe that we could be surprised again and yet each time we are.
Yet… Not once have I ever really given any thought to the sheer scale of this endeavour.
Until Anna posted on Facebook the other day.
She listed hundreds of names of people involved in this. People from all over Ukraine.
And this is the mind blowing bit. All of these people trust us, 100% to sell these items and bring aid back to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
People we have never met, and likely never will.
All of this hard work, the creation of this immense network of willing people, can only be credited to Olena, Anna and her team.
We are just the delivery boys and salesmen!
What they have created is just astonishing, the sheer scale of it, the effort, the time and love that has gone into this, shows the true Ukrainian spirit.
I wanted to use this blog to say my most sincere thanks and gratitude to Olena, Anna and her team for allowing us to be a part of this.
I feel both very humble and also very proud to be a part of this amazing team of people.
I have included a few photos from the past couple of missions, just snapshots of life during these missions. It is hard work, long days, emotions, stress and tiredness dominate our days, however it is during these days in Ukraine that we feel at our best.
And for that, I want to thank each and every person who supports us, either by purchases, donations or just with kind words of support.
There are too many of you to thank personally, but I do want to single a few special people out.
Richard Maxton, who creates the most amazing care boxes for Soldiers. They have become famous amongst front line troops. Each box packed with care and love, and containing nothing but the most useful and essential items. I have lost count of the number of boxes he has sent us, but on the last mission we took 60 boxes with us!
Theresa McCandless who has supported us with money and supplies for years now. On the last mission, we had to spend a night at the Border whilst paperwork was sorted out, and the warm blankets you gave us saved our lives!! And I fondly remember the looks from people in Tesco as I carried 30 tubs of Celebrations to the checkout, using money you kindly sent us!
To all the NAFO guys on X who are such good supporters of ours, and who spend an absolute fortune on our store, especially Lindsay and Art who we can always rely on to order when funds get low!
We have no plans to give up.
We are always looking for news ways to raise money.
And here is the cool part, you can get involved too.
If there is something you want made, let us know and we will make magic happen.
We did it with Frogs, we did it with Zelenskyy dolls, and we can do many other things too.
As long as it raises money for Ukraine we can do it!
Failure is not an option.
Thank you everyone! You are all amazing.
Olena’s Borscht is the real reason we do what we do!
It is always an honour to meet up with our friend Oleh “The Honeybadger”.
The cars at the border! Little did we know we were going to be there for 14 hours!
Its become a tradition to gift Olena some Lays Tomato sauce crisps!