UUARC releases annual report on aid to needy Ukrainians (12/03/00)

UUARC releases annual report on aid to needy Ukrainians

PHILADELPHIA - For over 50 years the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee has been providing all forms of humanitarian aid to Ukrainians throughout the world. After World War II, relief efforts were targeted to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees in Europe.

During the arrests of dissidents in Ukraine in the 1970s and 1980s, the UUARC directed aid relief to them and their families. These actions were financed exclusively by the Ukrainian community in the United States.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s the UUARC sent thousands of parcels containing clothing and medicines to needy Ukrainians not only in Ukraine, but also Brazil, Argentina, Romania, Yugoslavia and Poland. Financial aid was provided to Ukrainian refugees through our representatives in Germany and Austria.

With Ukraine's independence in 1991, a concerted effort has been made to help needy Ukrainians in Ukraine during the transition period from a command to a market economy. Since 1993, the UUARC, as a 501(c)(3) organization, has annually applied to the U.S. government to obtain grants from the Ocean Freight Reimbursement Program of the United States Agency for International Development to ship humanitarian aid to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. Most of these applications were approved and the UUARC was able to use taxpayer dollars to help our needy brethren in Ukraine.

For fiscal year 2000, which ran from July 1, 1999, to June 30 of this year, the UUARC obtained an Ocean Freight Reimbursement grant of $60,000 to cover ocean freight (only) for shipments to Ukraine and Kazakstan. This funding was restricted to shipping humanitarian aid, using U.S. registered ships. Funds to purchase boxes, transportation to locations in the U.S., and warehousing in Ukraine still came from the generous donations of the Ukrainian American community. As a result of the Ocean Freight Grant for fiscal year 2000, 13 40-foot containers and 251 additional parcels were shipped to Ukraine, and one container was shipped to Kazakstan. In most cases, the UUARC regional office in Kyiv obtained duty-free status for these shipments.

A listing of the containers, their destinations and organizations involved follows.

November 1999 - a container with medical equipment and medicines was shipped to the Lviv Oblast Children's Hospital by Emergency Medical Aid for Ukraine - Ukrainian American Youth Association. The shipment was valued at $145,000 and weighed 20,417 pounds.
December 1999 - a container was shipped to Lviv regional office of the UUARC by the UUARC headquarters. The shipment contained medical instruments, medicines such as aspirin and Tylenol, bedding and used clothing, destined for over 30 organizations including Caritas Kolomyia, internaty (boarding schools for children with disabilities), the Association of Political Prisoners and Sisters of the Holy Family in Hoshiv. The shipment consisted of 670 packages, weighing 17,737 pounds and valued at $60,000.
March - a container was shipped to Kazakstan, through the efforts of the Council of Defense and Aid for Ukraine, which functions under the aegis of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. The shipment included 790 packages, weighing 30,551 pounds and valued at $100,000.
March - a container was shipped to the Prosvita Society in Luhansk. The shipment contained 36 bales of used clothing, weighing 31,720 pounds and valued at $40,000.
March - a container of 42 bales of used clothing was shipped to the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Kolomyia, for distribution to needy villagers. The container weighed 34,266 pounds and had a value of $53,000.
March - a container of 38 bales of used clothing was shipped to the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Ivano-Frankivsk for distribution to the needy. The container weighed 33,279 pounds and had a value of $41,200. These three containers also were shipped through the efforts of the UCCA's Council of Defense and Aid for Ukraine.
June - a container of 700 parcels of used clothing and bedding went to Sarny, Rivne Oblast, through the efforts of Ukrainian Evangelical Churches, Lowville, N.Y. The shipment weighed 29,835 pounds and was valued at $50,740.
June - a container containing 829 parcels was shipped to Kyiv through the efforts of the humanitarian organization Children are Hope in Virginia. The shipment weighed 29,150 pounds and was valued at $127,000. It included medical instruments and supplies, school supplies and computers.
June - a container was shipped to the Kyiv regional office of UUARC by UUARC headquarters in Philadelphia. The shipment contained 656 parcels weighing a total of 27,000 pounds with a value of $51,500. It included equipment for two dental offices, an x-ray machine, wheel chairs, antibiotics, vitamins, bicycles, etc. The dental equipment was destined for Lutsk, Volyn Oblast.
June - a container of 408 parcels, weighing 25,237 pounds valued at $70,000 was shipped to the Sevastopol branch of the Prosvita Society through the efforts of Tidewater Ukrainian American Cultural Association, Richmond, Va. The shipment included x-ray machines, dental and medical equipment, and school supplies.
June - a container of 921 boxes was shipped to Kyiv through the efforts of the Ukrainian National Association. The shipment included books for the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, 115 boxes of used clothing for the Society of Former Political Prisoners in Kyiv and four parishes in Kyiv, and office supplies for the UUARC office in Kyiv. The total weight was 42,679 pounds, valued at $70,560.
June - a container was shipped to the UUARC's Lviv regional office by the UUARC headquarters in Philadelphia. The shipment contained 835 parcels weighing 34,568 pounds and valued at $70,000. It included 100 boxes for the Prosvita Society in Uzhorod, medical equipment, laboratory instruments for a college in Lviv, bicycles, etc.
July - a container was shipped to the UUARC regional office in Kyiv by the UUARC headquarters in Philadelphia. The shipment contained 620 parcels weighing 32,000 pounds with a value of $71,000. The container included 100 boxes of brand new encyclopedias, valued at $25,000, purchased by benefactor H. Malynowsky for the National University of Kyiv - Mohyla Academy, 42 boxes of books for Ukraine's National Academy of Defense, 37 boxes for the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Kyiv, supplies for hospitals in Brovary and other sites, 1,000 pairs of eyeglasses and 30 refurbished bicycles.

The UUARC also shipped 271 parcels to needy organizations in areas distant from Lviv and Kyiv, for a combined weight of 9,561 pounds and with a collective value of approximately $50,000.

The UUARC is indebted to all the organizations and individuals in this effort to help our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. Special thanks must also be given to the Catholic Medical Mission Board, which provided medicines and vitamins worth several hundred thousand dollars for the WARC shipments.

There are countless families and individuals to thank for having given of themselves, volunteering their time and their efforts and collectively donating hundreds of thousands of items for shipment to Ukraine. While we could never name all of them, there are two families that must be mentioned: Petro and Irene Shcherba of Wilmington, Del., and Wolodymyr and Ivanna Woznyj of Philadelphia. Between them, they collected hundreds and hundreds of boxes of new and used clothing for shipments to Ukraine, bringing them to UUARC headquarters on a regular basis.

Kudos to the community for answering the call to show that Ukrainian Americans could unite to make use of such a generous government grant, helping so many unfortunate people in Ukraine.

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