Group’s first shipment will help displaced Ukrainians

More than 600 boxes of supplies will be sent to eastern Ukraine this week as the first humanitarian shipment of an effort created last year to assist those displaced and suffering from the military conflict, Oakland Press informs.

The boxes, blessed by a local pastor, will be taken Monday from Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic School in Warren for travel to Ukraine. Volunteers from churches, schools and civic groups over the past few months have collected clothes, blankets, medical supplies and personal hygiene products to provide to Ukrainians hooked into the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russian-backed rebels.

This shipment is the first organized in metro-Detroit by the national organization, Save Ukraine Now, formed in 2014. Other groups have also sent aid.

On June 26, the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that more than five million Ukrainians are in need and 1.3 million are “internally displaced persons,” according to Vera Andrushkiw of the Ukraine-American Civil Committee of Metropolitan Detroit, which supports democracy in Ukraine.