Delivering in the Midst of War
Getting to the Elderly is a Struggle of Life and Death
3 Weeks
Our driver delivered food to an elderly man recently. When he received the bag, he told the driver that it had been 3 weeks since someone had delivered food to him. He had been waiting to die either from the bombs being dropped near his home or from starvation. It is hard to reach everyone, but we try our best to find those in need.
Why Our Network of Drivers is Important
Written by Tanya, our coordinator in Lyviv:
My mother’s neighbor in Kharkov died. She was 75 years old. She was alone and on crutches. While we were in Kharkov, we brought food and medicine to her. When we left, we asked a friend who lives nearby to bring food to her. She needed medicine but it was simply not available. So we bought medicines in Chervonograd (now we live here) and sent them to Kharkov.
But the area of the city where she lived was being heavily shelled. We could not find a single person who would agree to pick up the medicines at the post office and take them to this grandmother. It was very dangerous. Her neighbor couldn’t do it either, because his 14-year-old daughter was wounded and he took his family to another area of the city and it was far and dangerous to return to area where my mother’s neighbor lived.
The search for volunteers who could deliver the medicines took several days. Finally, we found a brave man who agreed to help. He started calling my mother’s neighbor to warn that he would bring her medicine, but she did not pick up the phone. Then the phone was disconnected. The person with whom we agreed came to her house, knocked on the door for a long time, but no one opened it for him.
And we never heard from her again. After a while, we learned that on the day this grandmother did not pick up the phone, she died waiting for the medicine. This is the story of so many elderly people in Ukraine.