If the horrible news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine impels you to help, you’re not alone. The company you keep includes former premier Ed Stelmach and former MLA Thomas Lukaszuk, and many of their colleagues, supporters, and new friends.
“Like all Canadians, I’m glued to television watching the developments in Ukraine. I just cannot stand sitting and watching T.V. and not doing something about it,” Lukaszuk said, indicating the first reason he teamed up with Stelmach was to figure out how they could offer any assistance to the millions fleeing Ukraine and the millions more still in the country as Russia is attacking it.
Lukaszuk has other, more personal reasons, too. He was raised in Communist Poland during a time of martial law. He said he knows exactly what it's like to wake up in the morning and have tanks and armoured vehicles and soldiers with machine guns in front of your house “compliments of the Russian government.”
“It immediately reminded me of my childhood and those days. Although mine was not as traumatic as what's going on in Ukraine, I can, at some level, relate to it. So I picked up the phone and Ed Stelmach is still one of those politicians that I keep in touch with on an ongoing basis. He is a proud Ukrainian. I said, ‘Look, I think the two of us can do something together.’ He didn't even take a second to think about it before he said, ‘What do we do?’ “My comment to Ed Stelmach was, ‘you have a good Rolodex, and so do I … let's make a few phone calls and see what critical items we can gather.’”
Lukaszuk said he has regular contact with the Polish government and the Canadian embassy in Warsaw. His home country, he added, now has two million Ukrainian refugees. When asked what was needed to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, both responded with a “shopping list of badly needed items,” in the neighbouring countries.
The shopping list included food, clothing, hygiene items, medical aid supplies, equipment for first responders and search and rescue teams, and more. Collecting them is one thing, but Lukaszuk had to figure out transportation first. He called the president of LOT Polish Airlines first to describe the proposal. In turn, he was offered the airline's largest plane: a Boeing 787.
The corporate philanthropy didn't end there, he said, noting that Shell offered 50 tons of jet fuel and Edmonton International Airport waived all landing fees and taxes. As for the private philanthropy, EIA's ground crews are volunteering their time to load the airplane. Before they get to that point, there were several dozen people volunteering at a donated warehouse, working to sort the items to ensure the international manifest for the flight would be done properly.
That warehouse was made available through more networking wizardry. T8N100Men's John Liston was watching a television news report of the effort and sent Stelmach an offer of assistance via email. Stelmach indicated at the time that ample space to collect and sort the donations was a high priority. Liston works with Alberta Enterprise Group and is in regular contact with many different trucking and logistics companies in the region. He started to put his own list of contacts to use.
"In five minutes, we had all these guys saying, 'Whatever you need. Do you need space? Do you need trucks? Do you need money?'" Liston began. "We had extraordinary response from our members."
When Stelmach said he needed a few cube vans or some computers, Liston's contacts came through again.
"The logistics of this became huge," said Liston, noting that the former premier kept coming up with new requests. "I went out to as big a network as it could, including our T8N guys, and just said, 'Listen, if anybody can help, here's what we're looking for.'"
The public collection occurred over two days ending on March 23. The results were staggering, even leading Lukaszuk to claim a surplus.
"This is, at this point, the last public collection because … even though it's a Boeing 787, there's only so much it can take," said Lukaszuk.
Though the first shipment has now been sent off, Lukaszuk advised the public to pay attention to his social media channels on Twitter and Facebook for the announcement of the next collection drive. Meanwhile, a collection has begun to help pay for future shipments that will be made by seacan and other costs that will be incurred. Those donations can be made to the Canadian Polish Historical Society.
“Something that started as a little idea on a telephone call has turned into a big massive production, but I’m happy for it,” Lukaszuk said.
