Early Tuesday morning a group of Warsaw expats set off from their adopted home onboard a 50 seater bus (pictured below) on a mission to Lviv. Their goals: help transport as many refugees back to Warsaw from Lviv as possible, and deliver much-needed humanitarian supplies to the refugee centers in Lviv and the surrounding areas.
In the days prior to the mission, the group called out for assistance in gathering the humanitarian supplies needed for the refugee centers.
This call managed to reach community members of cryptocurrency project Divi, who decided to fulfill the group's call for supplies as well as donate extra out of their own pocket.
With a man on the ground in Warsaw, the Divi community members quickly decided on a budget, and on Monday morning (24 hours before the start of the mission) they sent him out to buy as many supplies as possible for the journey (pictures below).
On Tuesday, thanks to the efforts of many people involved — within the Divi community and out — the undercarriage of the bus was packed full and the group was ready to set off on their journey.
The bus ride was long but went overall smoothly. Upon arrival the group quickly got to work, offloading the supplies to the refugee center located within the Lviv train station, and cooking up sausages out the front.
Once the supplies were dropped and the sausages depleted, it was time to achieve their main goal of getting as many refugees as possible over the border back to Warsaw. Thanks to the great work of Ukrainian native, Anna (holding the Aus flag in the top picture), as well as others, they managed to fill every single seat in the bus.
The drive back lasted the entire night, traffic was backed up heading towards the border and air-raid sirens going off nearby made it difficult to sleep. But by 8:00 am Wednesday morning, the bus and all its occupants arrived safely back in Warsaw.
For more information on the group's missions and how to donate: https://chuffed.org/project/help-get-ukrainian-refugees-out-of-ukraine
More about the Divi community's efforts for Ukraine: https://medium.com/@ryanbergh/divi4ukraine-update-1-3-22-22-a5118744d3b0
