The Grassroot Hero Foundation is more than simply donating - it is about creating a sense of relationship and connectivity by investing in people. As the following stories show, we support organizations and people not only through tangible and practical help but by listening and sharing in their story. 

A hero named Diana

In the days after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Diana opened the doors of her apartment to the women and children who had fled their homes with little more than what they could carry. Diana is a young mother with a toddler who simply decided to make a difference. She did not have extra money or room in her apartment, and quickly her neighbours began to complain about the women and children who were coming through the building. Just as she found way to find food, clothing and shoes for those who needed it most, she also found another location and then another again when she was unable to pay the rent. Because Diana did not have enough money to register her centre (appropriately named “Good Heart”), she can not receive money from large organizations - yet she persists through the sacrifices and challenges to make a difference to countless women and children. This has included Christmas activities and gifts for children, food and hygiene items for impoverished pensioners, and household items for families in villages targeted by Russian forces. We cannot think of a better grassroots hero to support than Diana.

The young volunteer Kostya

This is the story of Kostya who volunteers for the organization Odesa Wow which supports children and youth affected by the war in Ukraine. Odesa Wow shared his story to show the strength and resilence of young people in Ukraine.
 
“Kostya is from Mariupol. He got lucky. At the beginning of March 2022, he and his mother were able to flee the city with the help of volunteers. First they went to Zaporizhya and then onto Odesa. But the fate of Kostya’s father is unknown. He stayed in Mariupol and defended his hometown to the last. For more than six months, Kostya and his mother have been trying to find him among the prisoners, but so far to no avail. Kostya, now 14 years old, actively volunteers to support younger children. This keeps him from becoming discouraged and from what he describes as 'bad thoughts'. This year he is finishing the 9th grade and dreams of studying for the military or IT. It is in our power to help this young person keep his inner faith in good people, motivate him to study, and show him the possibilities for his future”.
 
Mahatma Ghandi said, “See the good in people and help them”. There is a great deal of good in Kostya. 

For the past year, Elena has been bringing fresh fruit and biscuits to these women each Saturday of every week of every month. When a group a male patients was transferred from Kherson, she found a way to also bring them food. On her own, she has built a team of volunteers who together have found ways to buy a number of new beds, provide proper meals, and even slippers for Christmas. Over the past weeks and months, the patients – no, these women and men were once children with dreams, a brother or sister to someone, an uncle or an aunt – have again been remembered by the world outside the doors that lock them away. When Elena and the team now arrive, they are greeted with hellos and smiles, not for the food they bring but for humanity they offer. 
It takes very little to bring a moment of respect and humanity to a person's life. However brief this might be, we should not discount the importance of those moments. If there was ever a grassroots hero making such a difference, her name is Elena.

Humanity behind locked doors

Elena left her Ph.D. studies in Paris when the war began in February of 2022. She was coming for a month but was still in Odesa more than a year later. Elena supports many causes but the psychiatric hospital owes the most to her commitment, perseverance, and selflessness. 
The hospital is a sprawling, decrepit institution in need of painting. Inside the building, behind a locked wooden door, there live 70 women. Many simply sit idle in a common room watching cartoons on a silent television, all wearing hand me down clothes and thick seaters to protect them from the chill.  In sleeping quarters, others lie beneath blankets pulled up to their chins, the most frail curled up and lost in their own worlds. Each room has over 20 old metal beds with ratty mattresses unfit for a human being. These beds are placed one against another, with absolutely no privacy. A portable toilet sits openly in one corner. Lunches consist of watery soup or mush and a piece of bread.

Lost dreams in a shelter 

A United Nations colleague shared this story with me. It would not leave me.
Between February and September of 2022, the city of Mykoliav saw only 30 days when it was not the target of Russian shelling or missile attacks. The fourteen year old girl had spent the better part of those days in a bomb shelter. Perhaps she might have gone about her days more normally like others did, but not after the house across from her own had been hit and destroyed by a missile. When the girl was asked whether she missed school, she said no and explained, “What is the purpose of school now?”. When asked what she liked to do best, she answered that she liked coming to the shelter. There was always a dog there that she played with.

Winter boots for Antonina

Antonina is from the city of Kherson, a city devastated by the war. I met Petrovina in a kindergarten that had been converted into a shelter in Mykolaiv. 
Antonina’s story was one of utter loss, sadness and suffering. She had left her entire life behind to find herself isolated and alone, without family and loved ones, in a strange city living with strangers. She wept as she described feeling entirely abandoned and forgotten, receiving not a word about her home or what was to become of her in the weeks and months ahead. She simply passed her days, each one like the previous day, mostly in sadness and suffering.
As I sat and listened, a sense of helplessness crept over me as I realized there was absolutely nothing I might offer to make Antonina's life even a little better. But then something happened. As Antonina apologized for sharing such a painful story, she also thanked me. She told me she felt better for having shared her story but also for having had someone simply sit and listen to her, to show that they cared and respected her. And then she asked for a hug. A hug, I repeat. And it struck me that sometimes doing nothing more than being present can make a difference in somebody’s life. And sometimes that has to be enough.
But sometimes, when we stop and listen, we can also find small but important ways to make a difference. As I was leaving the shelter, Petrovina quietly told she and some other persons in the shelter desperately needed winter boots. They could no longer go outdoors and, of course, they could not afford shoes of any sort. The Grassroots Hero Foundation purchased the boots for Antonina. But this is not a story about winter boots. It is a story about Antonina.

A thread for Valentina

There is a wise Ukrainian proverb that goes, “A thread from all over the world makes a shirt for the naked”.
Valentina is a widow who fled her home in Snihurivka when the war started. Like many pensioners, Valentina is among the poorest in Ukraine. Because of the war, she found herself without a home and far from her family. She was also in need of eye surgery but of course could not afford it. The cost for Valentina's surgery was $395. This may not seem to be a fortune to many people but it was a fortune for Valentina. But many threads do make a difference - Valentina’s eye sight was saved thanks to donations made through the Grassroots Hero Foundation. In Valentina’s own words, "Thank you very much for your help. May God bless you, your family, and your close ones for such a good deed you are doing for people. Thank you very much." Threads do make life changing differences …

A real grassroots hero 

These are photos of Artem, in the hospital and with his class mates.  is 14 years old. He has disseminated encephalomyelitis with a sensory impairment. Disseminated encephalomyelitis is a neurological disorder characterized by brief but widespread attacks of inflammation (swelling) in the brain and spinal cord.
 Artem requires a wheel chair for mobility as well as 100 urological catheters a month, which can not be purchased in his village. So we purchase these for him. 
 But Artem is the story here. Artem continues to go to school and, in order to help out his family, is looking for opportunities through the internet to earn money for his family. Now that is a grassroots hero!

Heroes come in all ages 

War can be a difficult concept for children to understand. For a five year old living in Canada, the understanding of Russia’s war on Ukraine meant a “Russia’s leader doing bad things” and “other countries should help Ukraine”. For Hayden, help meant holding a lemonade stand to raise money to support the building of a playground at a women’s shelter. He didn’t need to understand the logistics of how this would happen nor what raising over $100 meant. But he did understand that he liked playing on playgrounds and he wanted children in the Ukraine to experience the same. 
A child’s joy comes in all forms. It comes from being responsible enough to pour lemonade into cups all by himself. It comes from sharing a sweet drink with friends and neighbours. It comes from collecting money even when you know those coins aren’t going into your own piggy-bank. And it comes from playing on a playground.

Olga from Kherson

The woman smiling from the back of the van is Olga. She is a mother with a nine year old child who was forced to leave her home in Kherson at the beginning of the war. When the Kakhovka dam was destroyed, unleashing waters from the huge reservoir it held back, she felt compelled to help others who were still living in parts of Kherson now flooded. This is not simply bringing food and living necessities to survivors in a flooded city - it is never ‘simple’ when there is shelling and missile strikes. It takes courage and humanity. 
There are many heroes in Ukraine. This hero is named Olga.

Imagining Kateryna 

Imagine working your whole life to have a monthly pension of less than $75. Imagine, when you are 74 years old, losing absolutely everything in a war you would never have imagined possible growing up. Imagine having your home destroyed and moving into a small room in a stranger's house. Imagine being unable to afford $20 for a cane and having to search outside for a stick to help you walk because of your arthritis. Like you, Kateryna did not imagine her life would come to this. 
We may not be able build Kateryna a new home but we can help her with little things, like a walking cane.