Join us in supporting Ukrainian refugees. We’ll match your gift.
We’re giving $25,000 today, plus doubling your donations.
Like many of you, we at Hightop are heartbroken as we watch the war in Ukraine unfold. So our company is donating $25,000 to support Ukrainian refugees. In addition, our founder, Mick Hagen, and his wife Rachel Hagen will personally match $25,000 more in donations from our clients and friends. Join us in giving to Ukrainian refugees.
To ensure donations get to those in need, we’ve partnered with Lifting Hands International (LHI), a Guidestar Platinum-rated nonprofit on the frontlines of the crisis on the Ukrainian/Moldovan border. Your donation will provide critical support including food, communication stations, evacuation vehicles, medical supplies and psychosocial support. Thanks to the LHI team for sharing the following stories from the field with us.
This is Anna
Our partners at LHI met Anna in Moldova after she fled Ukraine with her son. She had endured 3 days in a bomb shelter near her home in Odessa after a “rocket bomb” was dropped on the airport 7 kilometers from her home. Her apartment shook with force, and though it was dark outside, the sky lit up like the sun.
Anna didn’t want to leave Ukraine, but her family insisted that she get out while she could. So she packed her son’s things, enough to last through the summer, and left. Her mother and ailing grandmother had to stay behind.
When the LHI team met Anna she was waiting in a shelter in Chisnau, hoping to get a bus to somewhere. Maybe Poland? Or Spain? She wasn’t quite sure. Her words to the LHI team were: “Please share this with all the people who don’t believe what is happening here is true.”
This is Oxana
Oxana arrived in Moldova from Odessa with her 5-year old daughter. She is living in a small temporary apartment with four other families. Her husband, parents, sister and friends insisted she leave them behind and seek safety with her daughter. She explained her feelings to the LHI team this way:
“I don’t want to live in another country. All of my friends and family are in Ukraine…I don’t understand it. I don’t understand what happened. I don’t understand yet. It happened very fast. I didn’t think it was possible…Now I think about my child. What will happen? What about her future? We can’t live like this forever.”
This is a Moldovan volunteer
This local volunteer came to serve her homemade soups and breads to Ukrainians crossing the border from Moldova to Romania. Shannon Ashton, the LHI team member who took her photo and documented the stories of Oxana, Anna and many other Ukrainians, described her experience like this:
“Even in this place of darkness we find ourselves, I shall never forget the special moments shared…the countless micro-offerings of love given by complete strangers: the young adults working round the clock in a pop-up refugee center in Chisinău. The teenager serving as a translator in his spare time. The kindness and comfort given by a Russian driver facilitating relief efforts. Aid workers running buses in the middle of the night out of Odessa to get people to safety. The business partners in Iasi opening a refugee center in a shopping mall at their own expense. The young Moldovans forming a grassroots task force tackling all sorts of problems. The vested volunteer at the Ukraine border tirelessly answering questions into the night. The man passing out flowers to all the women refugees on International Women’s Day.”
We’re inspired by the courage of Ukrainians, both those who have stayed in their home country and those who have sought freedom in unfamiliar places. We’re inspired by the dedication of the workers, volunteers and local citizens who are making great personal sacrifices to serve others at this critical moment in history. We invite you to join us in supporting them.
What our collective donation can provide:
Your donation will be stewarded by the team at Lifting Hands International who are working with vetted local partners to provide critical support services. LHI has earned Guidestar/Candid’s highest rating for transparency.
- $1000 provides transportation for one 1000 kg shipment of food and medicine into Ukraine where survivors are gathered.
- $10,000/month sustains a response team in Moldova to distribute supplies from collection hubs in the city to refugees in rural locations throughout Moldova.
- $30,000 provides one solar generator with wifi and phone chargers that can be used by 100+ people at a time at key border crossings. This critical technology enables refugees to let their families back home know they’ve arrived safely and plan their next steps as they navigate life in a new country.
- $30,000 provides shelter construction and renovation at critical safety points in Ukraine where survivors of the war are gathered.
- $50,000 provides 200 projectors for Ukrainian classrooms in Poland.
- $60,000 funds support shelters for refugees in rural Moldova, where needs are getting increasingly desperate.
- $78,000 provides computers for 100 Ukrainian teachers in Poland to enable refugee children to continue their education outside their home country.
You can make your donation directly to Lifting Hands International here, and Mick and Rachel Hagen will match all donations made through April 25, 2022 (up to $25,000). Thank you for your generosity!
