Day 1: Direct Aid For Ukraine 2024 Trip

It may come as a surprise to people that have forgotten amidst the presidential campaigns and the fires in the Middle East: There’s another gruesome war destroying lives right in the middle of Europe, my home continent.

Today, a diverse group of volunteers - pub owners, teachers, aid workers, and CEOs from Ireland, Germany, Hungary, and the US - met in Budapest and drove across the border to Ukraine to provide direct help and relief to people in need. 

The group, organized by Direct Aid for Ukraine and led by my passionate friend and founder Alex Davern, bonded quickly on the drive across the border. The purpose of the trip was to assess first-hand how the contributions made to Direct Aid for Ukraine are helping Ukrainians on the ground and to identify where future efforts can have the biggest impact. 

Not counting the traffic ticket we got, our first stop was in the small border town of Csongor where Direct Aid For Ukraine has worked the longest and has made a strong impact on the community in the past two years. As we walked up the stairs of a nursery that the organization helped rebuild, we were greeted by a sign that shows the town’s appreciation for the donations and volunteer work dedicated to the nursery. 

Pre-war, this nursery served over 70 children ages 3-6. Since then, the number has shrunk to less than 40 due to many families leaving Ukraine for the West. However, we were told that the impact of renovating the nursery has been significant - many neighboring towns had to shut down nurseries altogether as families left the area. The renovations have been instrumental in helping families stay, feel supported, and ride out the storm inside of Ukraine. Here are some striking before and after pictures.

After some Ukrainian snacks we visited the local school where a new generator funded by DAFU has kept over 200 school-aged children warm during Ukraine’s harsh winters and allowed education to continue despite many daily power outages that are the result of Russia’s constant bombardment of Ukraine’s power grid infrastructure.

Underneath the school is a makeshift bomb shelter where children hide during air raids. There are over 200 kids at the school; the current shelters can accommodate up to 150. Luckily for the children in this town, actual airstrikes have not occurred in the area - we feel 100% safe coming here - and this shelter has seen less and less usage as the missile warning system has become more precise and is no longer blanketing the whole country with alarms. 

We closed the day with a gracious dinner organized by the Major of Csongor, András Baksa. Hearing directly from the families impacted by the war was challenging and meaningful. What struck me the most as we heard stories from the Ukrainians living here was how normal a European town Csongor really was - and still is! In many ways, it is a town indistinguishable from the German town I grew up in. Yet, without warning, on a random day two years ago, this town of mostly ethnic Hungarians who farm great vegetables found itself at war with Russia - and regular people like us had to make gut wrenching choices of whether to fight in the East, relocate their families to the West, or find ways to cope in a bizarre, complex war that no one here has wanted nor knows how to stop.

Stay tuned as we will post daily updates from our journey. 

To donate to Direct Aid for Ukraine through a registered US charity to receive a tax deduction, please follow the link below:

https://www.ger3.org (PLEASE ALSO EMAIL ALEX.DAVERN@YAHOO.COM SO THAT WE CAN ENSURE YOUR DONATION GOES TO DIRECTAIDFORUKRAINE.ORG). 

On behalf of the DIRECTAIDFORUKRAINE.ORG team