Clothes Drive for Ukraine

Antony writes, “Pavel and I spent about every Sunday from mid August-September, which was about 18 hours total and a few hours on the weekdays. During this time we setup, got together, and did a clothing drive to send clothes from here to Ukraine. We ended up getting more clothes than expected. We expected to get a least a few bags of clothing and ended up getting a little over 10 bags of at least 5-8 shirts, 4-6 pairs of pants, and about 8-10 jackets per bag. We had 3 bags filled with jackets and the rest of the seven plus had other articles of clothing.”

Pavel and Antony report that their project did make a difference. They write, “We did this by bringing two churches together and sending gently used clothes to Ukraine for people who really need it and are going through a tough time escaping people who are trying to kill them because of political issues. We also engaged the public and the Slavic community in an issue that meant something to Pavel and me because we have ties to these people. Whether they were friends, family, relatives or people in need, we understood where they were coming from because our families used to be in a similar situation. We had empathy for these people who have struggled through so much. We gained experience and skills through this to act on these social problems. We learned to take action and make a difference to help people out. We needed to use our speaking skills to talk to churches and inform them what’s happening, and tell them what we wanted to do in order to help those in Ukraine. We developed leadership skills, and address the topic to the point where we had a better position to defend or explain the topic. We had to step up and show our peers that they can take a stand for something they believe in and to make a difference in anything they put their mind to.

Antony and Pave do have some advice for anyone who might want to do a project like this. They report that they should have had more events or reached out to others for more help. They write, “People did help but we felt like we had to do the bulk of the work since it was our project. We didn’t raise enough questions about the ethical theories we learned in class and incorporate more in to the way we did things… Next time we could use more time to put in more effort in setting up events to get more people to donate clothing. … You need to get the youth more involved in letting people know what’s going on and why we sent clothes to Ukraine specifically.”

Click here to watch videos of Pav and Antony explain their project.