For weeks now, organizations around the Golden Horseshoe have collected mountains of donations for Ukraine, but getting it from Canada to the front lines isn’t easy.

Several non-profits in Niagara have partnered with a Ukrainian organization called Stay Safe UA, who are braving the danger to make the deliveries. Stay Safe UA delivers everything from food to medical aid and even medical materials.

Aandryi Depko, one of the four founders of Stay Safe UA says they take much-needed humanitarian aid to the parts of Ukraine that need it most.

Depko works with hospitals, military units, local government officials, and other non-profit organizations to identify what is needed and where.

Then they tap into a network of contacts in Canada, the U.S., and Europe to secure donations, including from several non-profit volunteer groups in Niagara. The Warehouse of Hope, Not Just Tourists, For the Needy Not the Greedy and Niagara Christian Gleaners are supplying another Niagara non-profit, AMD for Hope, who are working directly with Stay Safe UA in Ukraine to get the materials to the front.

Depko and his team of only eight or ten volunteers get the supplies from Warsaw, Poland to their warehouse in Lviv, Ukraine, and then from there they drive them to hard-hit cities and villages near the front.

None of Depko’s team has been killed or injured, but the danger is ever-present.

Depko uses his network of contacts to get information on which roads are the safest and plans deliveries as carefully as possible. If he and his volunteers are killed Depko says some of the most dangerous places wouldn’t get the aid so desperately needed.

Doing this work comes at a cost, he has witnessed the true horror of the war, like the aftermath of Russian atrocities in Bucha and Hostomel, just west of Kyiv.