Ukraine Match Update: Houses in Place!

In August, we came together to raise over $30,000 for 10 houses for those displaced by war in Ukraine. The cold winter temperatures are coming soon! We are excited the 10 houses we funded are in place!

Horenka, 149 Kyivska Str.
Tetyana (65), Pensioner, and her husband Svyatoslav (72).
They came back home and found just ashes and a garage in holes. It seems that the explosions were caused by phosphorous bombs. "On February, 24 my husband and I were at home in Horenka. At 5:30 am, we knew that the war started, and at about 10 am, we saw our Ukrainian forces with tanks and military vans. They parked they equipment not far from our garden. The Russian forces from the planes and drones started to fire at our forces, and Ukrainian forces fired at them. We sat in the basement for 11 days; it was really scary. On the second day of the war, we were without electricity, and then without gas as well. Honestly speaking, we didn’t need gas back then--we couldn’t enter the house. Missiles were flying over us constantly.
We stayed in the basement like this until March 7. Then volunteers came and evacuated us to a neighboring town under the flying rockets. This town was bombed as well, and we lacked room in the basement for all the people who were evacuated. We stayed with our niece in Kyiv without any clothes and stuff--we only had 5 minutes to get out of our place. On March 23-26, when the Russian troops were cast out, our house and the houses of our daughter and our neighbors burned.
Update Nov 1, 2022: We gave them kitchen with the sink, beds and mattresses, heater, refrigerator and kettle, they found and bought the rest of the stuff they needed. 

Horenka, 2g Michurina Str.
Her husband, a civilian, died during war, killed by the war actions in their village. She is alone and their house completely burned. She has already found a job and tries to take care of herself.
Update Nov 1, 2022 We gave them kitchen, beds, mattresses, electric stove, heater, refrigerator, wardrobe and kettle. 

Hostomel, 5 Sadova Str.
Yulia was at her house all the time. Her house didn’t get the direct hit, but the hits on neighboring homes caused cracks over the whole house. Every day, brick by brick, the house was falling apart. The damage commission checked the house and called it ‘not suitable for restoration’.
During the active actions, when Yulia had electricity, she cooked for our soldiers. She gave away everything she had in their house, including clothes and shoes so our soldiers would not be cold while fighting. She charged their phones, and called mothers of the soldiers to send word their sons were alive.
When it became impossible to live in the house (because it could fall at any minute), the soldiers made a house of bricks and logs for her. It served as a temporary shelter until we put a modular house for her. Yulia lives with her husband; they both are pensioners. They have a daughter who lives in a one-room apartment in Bucha, without room for her parents to stay.
Update Nov 1, 2022: We gave them kitchen, beds and mattresses, heater, electric stove, refrigerator, wardrobe and kettle. They themselves made a small addition to the house, so they have kind of kitchen and two rooms.

Horenka, 138 Kyivska Str.
Mariya and her husband are pensioners. They were evacuated by Ukrainian forces during active battles. When they came back, their house was burned and uninhabitable. There is proof of a phosphorus bomb. At first, they asked our team to put the house on the street, as someone was still helping them to clean the debris of their former home. Later they moved the house into their yard and placed it where the entrance doors match the threshold of their ruined house.  (You can see that in the picture with mattresses.) They have son who helped with furniture in the modular house.
Update Nov 1, 2022 We finished filling up this house as well. We gave them beds, matrasses, refrigerator, heater, kitchen, table and chairs. 

Hostomel. 47 Kulisova Str.
Yevhen and his wife and child managed to leave the house before it was bombed. However, his father stayed in the house---he didn’t want to leave it, as he had built it with his hands. He was still in it when a shell hit the gazebo next to the house. A fire started and moved to the house, Neighbors managed to get him out through the window. He later died of a heart attack. Yevheniy came back, and little by little will restore or build his home from the beginning. This modular house will be a great support for him, his wife and their small child. When he arranges the communications in the house, his family will move in and we will have more pictures of them.
Update Nov 1, 2022: They did a lot by themselves, as a young family. Also we gave them kitchen, but he is painting the house now, so they will install it later.

Horenka, 138a Kyivska Str.
On February 24, the war started. For 4 days, Lidiya’s family lived in the basement. On February 28, they had to leave their town. On March 12, they arrived to Netherlands; on the the same day they got a video of their house, basement and garage burning. The home of 4 families was destroyed. Lidiya is a pensioner, 69 years old. She has a granddaughter, Daryna, who is 16; Lidiya is her guardian. Before we put the modular house, Lidiya had lived in a tent made for her. We temporarily put the house nearby. Later, they will move it into her yard.
Update Nov 1, 2022: We gave them kitchen, beds and mattresses, refrigerator, heater, electric stove, kettle, table and chairs. She arranged a whole house and now it looks like home.

Horenka, 178 Kyivska Str.
Valentyna and her family were hiding in their neighbor's basement during the first days of the war. They were then evacuated. After they came back, they saw that their house had burned, bombed by phosphorus bomb. On the video she is saying that she is happy to have this house and that it’s much better than the destruction she came back to.
Update Nov 1, 2022 We gave her also the same stuff like to everyone, we gave them kitchen, beds and mattresses, refrigerator, heater, electric stove, kettle, table and chairs.

Horenka, 24 Zavodska Str.
On the video Yuriy shows his house that is not suitable for living. His wife and he lived there. They had just finished repairs in their kitchen before the war. At first, they hid in the kitchen and slept on mattresses there. When shelling hit their house, cracks went all over the place and they were forced to look for shelter.
In May, Yuriy’s wife passed away in age of 42.
Update Nov 1, 2022 We could help him with everything necessary: bed, matrass, kitchen, stove, kettle, refrigerator, heater, kettle and wardrobe. He is trying to fix something in his destroyed house now before colds come, so it doesn't get destroyed even more during winter. 

Horenka, 55 Kulishova Str.
They left on February, 24 to stay with their relatives in Belohorodka. They took their grandson, 3 years old, and their mom Olga, 73 years old (she had sugar diabetes, and unfortunately she passed away a month after the war began because of the stress). On March, 12 they got a call from their neighbors that their house had burnt. They came back in the beginning of May and started to clean up as they could. The house is not suitable for life, but maybe with time they will manage to earn money and try to rebuild their house, at least a part of it.
Update Nov 1, 2022: We gave them kitchen, beds and mattresses, refrigerator, heater, electric stove, kettle, table and chairs.

Horenka, 186 Kyivska Str.
On February, 24 the couple woke up from the explosions they heard. Opening the news, they found out that the war had started. They called their children to come and stay with them, as they had basement and at that time it seemed that it was safer outside of Kyiv city.
On February, 25 the electricity went off, as the high-voltage power line was damaged due to the fact that orcs stormed the airport and there were street battles in Hostomel, Irpin and Bucha. The whole family hid in the basement as the explosions were too loud and the whole town was being bombed. They had witnessed fighter raids, destruction from aerial bombs, terrible fires from shells, a humanitarian crisis and deaths of people.
On March, 5 the whole family moved to the neighboring town Pushcha-Vodytsya, but shelling reached that town as well, so they had to go to the west of Ukraine. The only person from their family who didn’t want to leave was Tetyana’s brother-in-law, who didn’t want to abandon his animals. He helped Ukrainian soldiers to hide, gave them place in the basements of their houses.
On March, 24, at night, the foreign drone was spying over their street, and later the same night Russian troops covered all the houses on their street with incendiary (phosphorus) shells. They hit directly into the house of Yuriy and Tetyana, and fortunately the Ukrainian soldiers who were hiding there survived, they only got injuries and contusions, and they were grateful for the strong building. Tetyana’s brother-in-law was in the middle of fires from different sides, there was no water, no light, no people to help to put out the fire. He had to watch how their houses were being destroyed. When Yuriy and their family came back, there was not much left of their house. This modular house now is their safe place.
Updated Nov 1, 2022 We gave them kitchen, beds and mattresses, refrigerator, heater, electric stove, kettle and wardrobe.