PlebeianHelpers for Ukraine

Volunteer Phil Peterson meeting with Ukrainian women in Krakow who were forced to abandon their homes and lives in eastern Ukraine

PlebeianHelpers Volunteeers in 2025

During our first two trips in 2022, we had 9 volunteers who worked at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland delivering food and supplies to Ukrainian refugees as they crossed the border into Poland. We began establishing relationships with other humanitarian aid groups such as UAid Direct and Youth With A Mission (YWAM) to provide supplies to Ukrainians who have been displaced from their homes inside Ukraine. We were profoundly influenced by those experiences with the Ukrainian people. We were deeply saddened by their plight, but inspired by their courage and determination. We decided that we would make an effort to enhance our ability to help them by attempting to recruit more volunteers and to raise more funds to provide the aid that was desperately needed.

We have grown considerably during 2023, 2024, and 2025. More than 60 volunteers from all over the US, Canada and the UK have raised over $700,000 and have participated in our trips to Poland and Ukraine. During our trips, we established our base of operations in Krakow, Poland and rented cargo vans to provide aid to the thousands of Ukrainian refugees living there. We also strengthened our relationships with UAid Direct and YWAM and established new relationships with other humanitarian groups, such as Kidsave, Civilian Aegis and the Golgotha Church in Rivne, to serve as our agents to provide aid to Ukrainians living in or near the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine.

Using these two means of distribution, we have purchased and effected delivery of two ambulances and an enormous amount of preserved food, hygiene products, school supplies, clothing, medical equipment and other basic living supplies for Ukrainians. We also financed various services for Ukrainians in need, such as language classes and counseling for War Veteran Families and children who have lost one or both of their parents because of the war.

Food And Basic Living Supplies For Ukrainian Refugees In Krakow, Poland

Our most time consuming activity was making daily trips with our rented vehicles to discount warehouses in Krakow to purchase preserved food, school supplies, hygiene products, and other basic living supplies and delivering those goods to the refugee centers sponsored by humanitarian aid groups in Krakow, such as:

The Dibniki Foundation - operates a refugee center that provides basic necessities for 1500 Ukrainian families. See https://kochamdebniki.pl/

Pastor Oleg Sydorchuk of the The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ - operates a distribution center in Krakow for 300 refugee families

After making deliveries to these refugee centers, our volunteers spent considerable time packaging the goods for distribution and distributing these packages to the Ukrainian refugees supported by the refugees centers.

Distributions at the Debniki Foundation

Foundation Widowisko - “Coffees With Ukrainians”

Volunteers Phil Peterson and Rob Littlefield led our work with the Foundation Widowisko, a Polish charity, to sponsor five “coffee” meetings among the PlebeianHelpers volunteers and a total of 120 Ukrainian refugees living in or near Krakow to discuss whatever topics the Ukrainian refugees wanted to discuss. Many of the conversations related to how the Ukrainians were forced to abandon their lives and their homes because of the war and the challenges they faced in Poland without being able to speak Polish and without being considered for good jobs even if they actually were qualified to perform them. PlebeianHelpers provided the Ukrainians who participated in the meetings with retail vouchers, but we felt that many of the Ukrainians were more grateful to know that there are people from other countries who had not forgotten them.