World Help, a Virginia-based nonprofit based in Forest, has sent a team to the Ukraine border in Poland to provide aid during the refugee crisis.
The team aims to expose the human element of the crisis by documenting the stories of displaced Ukrainian families.
The nonprofit is also assisting local partners in Poland and Ukraine with humanitarian relief and working directly with them to best learn about the needs of Ukrainian citizens.
The group first stopped in Poland Thursday at a center that is serving 800 people who fled Ukraine.
“Over a million refugees have already fled the country,” said World Help President Noel Brewer Yeatts. “When we hear that, it’s easy to dismiss it as a statistic. But these are real people, real families that have been uprooted and torn apart. Every one of them has a story that needs to be told.”
The non-profit released a video on Friday of the story of one of those refugees named Valentina. She escaped with her five children and sister’s family.
Yeatts learned on Friday that a center in Ukraine just received a bus load of 55 orphans.
“That just really got me to think that these children who in some ways are already searching for a home. And now in the midst of crisis the home they have, they have to leave,” said Yeatts.
The stories of these families can be found on World Help’s social media accounts and blog.
More information on donating to Ukrainian refugee relief can be found on World Help’s website.