3Cares: Channel 3′s supply drive moves to the next phase: Packing

HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) - Following a successful drive to help the people of Ukraine, Channel 3 moved to the next phase.

The station’s “3 Cares” event shifted to the packing process.

While that happens, organizers said monetary donations are still being accepted by way of the United Ukrainian Relief Committee’s website here: https://www.uuarc.org.

Once the packing process is completed, the items donated at both the Hartford and New Haven locations will be driven to New Jersey where they’ll be flow to Poland. From there, they’ll be transported to western Ukraine.

The supplies are expected to get into the hands of the Ukrainian people by Saturday.

Channel 3 helped collect donations at two locations on Monday, including the St. Michael Ukrainian Catholic Church in New Haven and the Ukrainian National Home of Hartford in Hartford.

Eyewitness News met a Middletown woman who is driving to New York City as she bought plane tickets for her family who escaped Ukraine.

While volunteers are tirelessly packing all of the items, your generous donations are already helping change lives.

Mariana Zakhidna was able to grab some much-needed items at the Ukrainian National Home in Hartford Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday night, she will be picking up some very important people in her life.

“I am picking up my sister. She is flying from Poland today,” Zakhidna said.

Her sister Victoria along with her 4 and 6-year-old niece and nephew escaped Ukraine.

Her sister had to leave her husband behind.

“There are moments I’d spoken on the phone with her, and she’d be like ok, we need to go hide because the sirens were going off. She would have to pick up her kids in the middle of the night and they would be crying,” said Zakhidna.

This picture of Mariana’s niece and nephew was taken today at the airport in Poland.

All three are now in route to New York City, but they barely have any items with them.

“She only has one suitcase because obviously it’s hard with the kids. They had to stay for some time in Poland. Managing 2 little kids and lot of luggage, that wasn’t an option at all,” Zakhidna said.

The donations will go a long way to help this family get a fresh start.

Volunteers are sorting through all types of adult and children’s clothing, diapers and non-perishable food items, placing them in shipping boxes and loading them on a truck so they can be sent to Ukraine.

Because the response was so overwhelming and they collected so much, they now also plan to ship some of the boxes themselves.

“We have to pay for the shipping. We are estimating now based on what we are weighing on packages, we are probably looking at about $100,000 in shipping,” said Roman Kolinsky, a volunteer.

While the group has collected plenty of items – they do still need the money to cover those shipping costs.

More on the efforts can be read here.

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