The drumbeat of news from Ukraine is relentless. It’s tragic, horrific, frightening — there really are not enough words to convey how Westporters feel.
Sitting safely thousands of miles away, we wonder what we can do.
Some, like Rabbi Jeremy Wiederhorn and Buck Rosenfeld, travel overseas to help.
Rabbi Jeremy Wiederhorn, with supplies.
Others, like Stephan Taranko and Mark Yurkiw — both with Ukrainian heritage — use their words and art to keep the plight of their countrymen in the forefront of our minds.
Mark Yurkiw, with his Ukraine installation on the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge.
Still others, like Darcy Hicks and Bean Corcoran, organize rallies.
Miggs Burroughs at last weekend’s rally. The QR code provides quick access to donations through Save the Children Ukraine. (Photos/Rowene Weems Photography)
And many, many more — our neighbors and friends — respond to requests by organizations like Wakeman Town Farm to collect clothes, toys, medical supplies and money.
Those who help are not doing it to be heroic. The true heroes are on the ground, 4,500 miles from Westport.
But many people here do what they can. If you’ve done anything over the past month — organized or attended a rally, donated needed goods or funds, posted information on social media, flew a flag, whatever — thank you.
It’s a small gesture, but it speaks volumes. Mark Mathias has changed his outdoor lights, to show support for the embattled nation of Ukraine. (Photo/Mark Mathias)
And keep doing it. It does make a difference.
(Photo/Susan Woog Wagner)
This is very nice post Dan, makes you realize most of the stuff that people argue about on your blog is meaningless. God forbid we should run out of parking spaces at our essentially private beach.
My company works with and owns a significant piece of our development company called Dev Pro. https://dev.pro. They / we have more than 800 employees who were all originally in Ukraine, although a bit more than half have gotten out. All together with their families and extended families, it was close to 10,000 humans.
We are missing three, and fear they are lost. But the fact that so many have stayed behind to defend their land under almost impossible odds in a country led by a former comic, is somewhere between incredibly inspiring and dangerously reckless.
What I know though, is that they have the internet, and while many of them continue to work (and get paid through some pretty creative means), they see the global support and it only emboldens them.
I’ve already pointed more than several to your previous posts. We have Westporter’s over there in harm’s way, taking the photos, but we have a lot of people very similar to us, having their property destroyed and their lives and futures completely upended.
Slave Ukrani