Natick Couple Organizes Supply Drive To Aid Ukraine

NATICK, MA - A Natick couple with ties to Ukraine spent the weekend collecting and organizing donated supplies at their home with family and friends in an effort to provide humanitarian aid to the country ravaged by the current conflict with Russia.

Masha Dumanis was born in Moscow when it was part of the Soviet Union and left for the United States with her parents as a baby.

"My family are actually Soviet Jewish refugees," she said, noting that they left Moscow in 1990 and have Ukrainian roots. "They left because Jews were persecuted in the Soviet Union and not allowed the same freedoms."

The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine moved her and her husband, Daniel, to begin their own humanitarian effort to aid Ukraine, taking donations from community members in their garage. Both Masha and Dan have Ukrainian ancestry.

Dumanis discovered a Ukrainian-based logistics company called Meest early last week, which is "sort of the equivalent of a FedEx."

The name, she said, is appropriate, because "meest" means "bridge" in Ukrainian.

"They do logistics between Eastern Europe and the United States," she explained. "I saw a post that they were taking humanitarian aid to a centralized warehouse. They are also taking humanitarian packages. If you direct them to an organization, they will ship them at a reduced rate."

Because the crisis is unfolding so rapidly, the items requested for donation have changed. The warehouse had to stop receiving shipments of clothing and other goods within a few days because it was full.

"They were so overwhelmed that they couldn't process the shipments," Dumanis said. "They had something like 100,000 tons of materials."

Now medical supplies and medications are in high demand.

Where items can be shipped in Ukraine is also changing as areas fall under attack. Dumanis noted there are now green and red zones. What was a green, or safe, zone a couple of days ago to ship to Eastern Ukraine is now red because of the conflict escalation.

"From a humanitarian standpoint, everything on the eastern side, like Kyiv and Odessa, are really seeing a lot of fighting, so the shipments can't go there." she said. "But the items we are shipping are going to the western city of L'viv."

Medical supplies like gauze pads and antibacterial ointments are going to a local hospital there for wounded soldiers, she said. Items like clothing and hygiene products will be going to a central distribution center in Kyiv.

Dumanis works at Health Advances, a healthcare strategy consulting company. She gained support after she posted about it at work as well as on a Facebook page for Natick moms.

"I needed to do this over the weekend because there is a plane going out Tuesday out of New Jersey," she continued. "Everything had to be packed by today to get it to the facility for shipment."

Because she and her husband, who works at MIT's Lincoln Lab, both have management roles at their jobs, they were able to organize an "assembly line of volunteers." They set up spreadsheets to meticulously document each item that came in so that friends and family could then sort, pack and weigh the boxes for shipment. Her husband previously had been involved in humanitarian aid efforts, so he knew the proper protocols for documentation for customs.

"We want to triage how successful this drive is before we plan any more," Dumanis said. "Is it even going to get to its destination?"

Between 1,300 and 1,5000 pounds of items were received by Sunday. They also got more than $5,000 in donations, which went toward covering the costs of shipping as well as buying additional supplies. The Dumanis family will cover the additional shipping costs along with friends.

Money also was used to purchase personal water filters made by a company called LifeStraw. This is important because water would have been difficult to ship but is a highly sought commodity in Ukraine. The LifeStraws have the capability of purifying even the dirtiest water for drinking.

Dumanis quickly added that her family's contribution is not the only effort that has sprung up in Natick and how thrilled she is that the community has been so responsive.

Dumanis also spoke about her parents' struggles that led them to flee Moscow more than three decades ago to create a better life for thier young family. Because her parents' passports identified their ethnicity as Jewish, they were denied opportunities in their homeland, she said.

"Based on that, they were persecuted against and not allowed to the same privileges or leadership roles in their careers or to attend prestigious universities," Dumanis explained. "They left when I was just a baby so that I could have more opportunities."

She said she also has Ukrainian roots "if you go back a generation or two."

Although her husband was born in the United States, both of his parents have Ukrainian ethnicity. His mother emigrated from Ukraine as a teen, while his father, who has Ukrainian ancestry, left Moscow as an adult.

Watching the crisis unfold on the news drew an eerie parallel for the couple as they watched Ukrainian refugees pack onto crowded trains.

"Like anyone, it's really hard to feel like you're doing nothing," Dumanis said. "With some little twist of fate with my family, I could place myself there. What if it were me and my children running to a bomb shelter? For me, it's really difficult to process."

The couple has a 5-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy. The family speaks both English and Russian at home.

"For us, the maintaining of the culture is important in a kind of connection to our roots," Dumanis said. "But we have never considered ourselves to be close to the political climate there as we consider ourselves American, either born or raised here."

Her mother-in-law still has family members in Ukraine as is concerned for their safety as the conflict unfolds. Many of the couple's Russian-speaking friends have family in Ukraine as well, which makes the crisis hugely personal.

"For the Russian-speaking community, watching this whole thing unfold - as horrific as it is for everyone - I think it's particularly traumatic because we're living the trauma of the war, but virtually," according to Dumanis. "It's been really heartwarming just to do something tangible to help."