Friends, Family,

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I reach out to you at a time when we, as Americans, are in the advantageous position to learn from afar that fundamental humanity cannot be taken for granted. While the stories may be adequately reported on the news, statistics and images fail to capture the true damage that Russia has inflicted through its senseless war on Ukraine. Men, woman, and children yearning only for freedom and normalcy are the truest casualty of this war. I will limit myself to saying that meeting those who bear the scars of this brutal abuse and hearing firsthand the stories of their loved ones who have been killed or injured, are missing, or are still fighting against incredible odds was very difficult. I would be remiss if I did not dedicate myself to finding a way to help.

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To this end, I would like to share with you my experiences with a unique group of refugee children. These kids and their guardians help shine a bright light through all this darkness. By nature, this group contains some of the most vulnerable citizens of Ukraine; children already displaced by life and in state care at the time the war began, now without the certainty of a city or country to call home. We came to know them at the Palac Pod Bocianim outside Lebork, Poland.

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The Palac Pod Bocianim is a resort that has hosted visitors for generations, welcoming them with the region’s beautiful countryside and world-class horseback riding. Upon our arrival, we discovered galloping not only in the surrounding fields but also within the halls of the Palac itself. The Palac has a distinguished history of charitable activities with Polish families, but the proud gallop that greeted us came from the wards of the state of Ukraine from Zaporizhzhia. These children and their guardians endured indiscriminate Russian shelling in their region for weeks, notably threatened by nuclear catastrophe due to its proximity to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. As Putin continued to escalate his atrocities, the guardians of these children had to make an extraordinary sacrifice to leave their sons, daughters, grandchildren, and husbands behind in order to ensure the safety of these children.

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Boarding a moving train at night, a small group of chaperons led 250 children ages three to seventeen to a harrowing escape. They presumed their destination to be Western Ukraine, likely Lviv. None of them foresaw a trip across the border. Nevertheless, in the face of unimaginable uncertainty, the group ultimately relocated into Poland and divided into five groups, each with only three to four guardians and about fifty children. 

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Our friends at the Palac were one of these groups led by a proud Zaporizhzhian named Olga. Formerly a director of the Zaporzhzhia center, she took legal custodianship over the 54 children to enable their escape with only support from three staffers (one of whom elected to leave a few weeks before our arrival due to the stress of the situation). Karmically, she found kindred spirits in kindness at the Palac. Across language barriers and emotional exhaustion, and against the backdrop of the ongoing war, this small group worked together to redesign hotel rooms into dormitories and multi-purpose rooms. This was all done with minimal outside financial support, and often at the individual expense of the resort employees. 

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Upon our arrival the Palac, on the one-month anniversary of the children’s arrival, we witnessed the fruits of their labors. Children living in an impossible time with an impossible sense of normalcy in their lives. In fact, we arrived just as the children started their first week of school in the local Polish school system.

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During our time at the Palac, my girlfriend, Olga Terets (herself a proud native of Zaporizhzhia) and I were able to have a measurable impact. Olga tutored in many subjects, given her native knowledge of the language, and I tutored math even with no common language. Numbers and equations are fortunately universal. More importantly, we helped to fill material needs. The chaperons and kids had to leave Ukraine with almost nothing. This left them with a need for properly fitting clothes and shoes, school supplies, and a dryer they could use. All this we were able to assist with procuring. Despite material progress during our visit, we realized they also needed something special to reward their hard work, a symbolic gesture to recognize their efforts to make the best of the situation. 

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We debated what was appropriate with guardians and finally settled on something so iconically American that, if I hadn’t seen the joy it brought, I might be embarrassed to admit. We bought everyone dinner from McDonald’s: hamburgers, fries, and soda. One of the guardians called it “a gift for the heart, for which I didn’t even know how to ask.” The simple dinner brought a moment of togetherness and familiarity, and a little fun, in a divisive and often sorrowful time. We were embarrassed by the effusive thanks of the children and the guardians, given how little we felt we had done compared to all that was needed. 

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This need is why I write to you. Many of you have asked me to let you know of a way you could help.

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Our primary objective is to ensure that the costs of maintaining the more than fifty children at the Palac are met for at least the next six months. They have some funding, but it is not enough. I have worked to understand the necessary costs to ensure the children have transportation to school, access to medical care, essential supplies, and one thing that they have all been too deprived of— a little fun.

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Our goal does not lack ambition as $125K is needed for just the operations at the Palac. 

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Our greater hope is to raise additional funds to extend support to the other groups of children that fled the Zaporizhzhia region. The guardians at Palac have made it clear they want nothing more than the exact support required to ensure they and other deserving groups that evacuated with them can continue to responsibly care for the children. 

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With all this in mind, I hope you’ll allow me one final anecdote in conclusion. Towards the end of our time at the Palac, Natalia, one of the guardians who had studied English many years before, proclaimed that she was in the presence of angels from America. Though I have learned better than to correct a Ukrainian babushka, I will risk it one time. She was in the presence of angels that day, but it wasn’t the first time and they didn’t come from America. She had been on the other side of the mirror from an angel, and sharing a single room with two others, from the day they left Zaporizhzhia. 

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These incredible individuals need help. Like their native Ukraine, they are outnumbered but undeterred. They are exhausted but relentless. These are people who help the helpless. 

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Thank you for your time and consideration. 

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Your friend,

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Alexander Unger

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