Grassroots Response To The Ukrainian Crisis

We are your next-door neighbours, your coworkers, your sisters and brothers, the person you go to church with, or sit beside at your neighbourhood association meetings. Our group started with a conversation and then a few days later a meeting with a dozen people and then 5 days later with a community event with over 100, followed by community events for 6 weeks in a row with over 100 people at each. During these meetings, our community came together and started mobilizing. We didn't set rules, we did not create an executive, we left it up to those attending to imagine and start organizing around the issues we were seeing. One year later we have over 500 volunteers, 145 hosts, helped welcome over 500 Ukrainian newcomers, created numerous baskets of food and hygiene items, and helped start up 2 facilities that offer housing for Ukrainians. Recently, we have started expanding our geographic reach to include Guelph, Perth, Oxford, and Bruce. We are still completely volunteer-led, we still have no executive, and we still allow our volunteers to imagine and organize around the issues they see. We do not advertise to Ukrainians overseas but somehow they find us. They find us by word of mouth, on Facebook, or by friends and family. They complete our intake application and let us know that they need help with housing or other support. We do our best to connect them with hosts within our network and then connect these hosts and Ukrainians with volunteers that can help with translation, transportation, food, social support, employment... and many more areas.