It's said, "You can clearly see bright people in the dark times".
Plenty of iLogos folks used to donate to charity regularly even before the war started, but now, in 2022, it's safe to say that all of us got involved in monetarily helping the Ukrainian armed forces, war refugees, and victims.
Yet few #ilogos_team members went even further, starting their volunteer projects.
Here are their stories:
Yana, BizDev, helps charity fund "Kind Challenge" fundraise money for animal shelters
I joined "Kind Challenge" about three weeks ago. Here I'm performing my usual role as a business development manager, but instead of searching for gamedev companies that are in need of art or software, I am reaching out to international organizations that could provide help to Ukrainian charity projects.
For example, now I'm contacting pet food and toy manufacturers in regard of helping animal shelter in Zaporizhia city.
I was inspired to join the project by Svitlanka (our CBDO), who knew founders long before the war and used her business network and experience in outreaching large businesses to fundraise about 750 000 UAH for the needs of citizens of sieged Mariupol.
I hope my lead gen expertise will prove helpful here too.
Support KindChallenge: https://bekind.ua/uk/donation?fundId&projectId=2199d697-56ef-4650-8391-35abd2d468a1
Bohdan, QA engineer, local jack of all trades
It all started with donations to UAF and hosting refugees in my and my parents' homes.
As the number of evacuated people rose, I no longer could host them all and began to search and book housing for them. Then my friends, who left Kharkiv, started to ask for meds because in small rural villages they couldn't find any. At that time, there was a shortage in medicines all over Ukraine as supply chains were intermitted, so I searched for needed pills in pharmacies and shipped them to people.
Apart from these activities, I started fundraising for my friend's military ammunition as he joined the armed forces.
Overall, I serve as a shopper and courier for all queries that I get.
I would like to do more like our backend lead Artem Tereshin, he truly inspires me.
You can support Bohdan’s initiative via 5375411412155595
Artem, Backend team lead, supplies maternity homes
The first few days of the war, I had spent in terror of current events, constantly convincing acquaintances that they needed to flee the country.
Then I saw a repost in the media – a local maternity hospital asked for hygiene products and meds. The following day, I pulled myself together and rode to said hospital – I was lucky to have a full tank of fuel in my car, asked for details such as sizing and quantity of required products, and took off for shopping. Upon my return, the hospital supply manager, an elderly lady, hugged me, and I was done for – I knew that I couldn't leave these people. War is war, but babies don't stop being born.
My primary tool was my car – Chevrolet Camaro 6 2.0, which is more suited for street racing than for delivering diapers, but in such dire situations we have to work with what we've got. Also, I had spent all my savings on this before asking friends and coworkers for financial help.
In March, everything was in chaos – no meds in pharmacies, empty shelves in shops, empty hospital storages. I've tried everything I could, interacted with people who could import missing goods from Romania, Bulgary, and Moldova, drove to national borders through endless military checkpoints to get supplies from foreign volunteers and delivered them to the hospital.
March was crazily busy – volunteering took nearly all of my time; I had to manually place orders, search for diapers and baby formula in local shops, take them to the hospital and start all over again. It didn't affect my work but was utterly exhausting.
Now things got better – there's no longer a need to transport packages, as shops' delivery and postal services resumed. Now I manage orders remotely and can help other hospitals and nursing homes.
You can donate for hospital’s needs via card 5375411411629269
Maksim Illiashenko, Head of Internal Products, set up a tailoring workshop
For almost a month me and my girlfriend Yulia were trapped in a small village near Kherson city. Constant shellings, crossfire, no heating and no connection due to power out, food shortage... March was harsh for us.
At last I got desperate, packed my car and we tried to flee. A friend had introduced me to a group of military volunteers who helped us to evacuate by providing the safest route.
When later I met them in person and asked if I can be of service in any which way, volunteers told me that they are trying to launch a workshop for tailoring bulletproof vests and other ammunition, but there are no suitable materials and they are lacking knowledge of tailoring technologic processes.
My girlfriend owns a small clothing brand so she is well versed in all of that, plus, due to networking, has a huge contact list.
We combined her knowledge of tailoring and my organisational skills, got samples of ammunition and started to reproduce them, later adding some new goods designed from scratch, like a tactical backpack and its medical variation.
For now all processes are running smoothly: military volunteers place an order, for example, bulletproof vests, our design engineer draws a pattern and calculates fabric and accessories consumption, I search for and buy all the required materials, tailors sew down the ammunition and volunteers deliver it to soldiers.
The main issue is finances: I no longer can restock fabric from my savings, now all process depends on charity donations.
Incessancy is crucial – we have to order materials of proper quality from abroad and delivery takes up to three weeks so after getting a request from volunteers there's almost no time to raise funds, we have to plan workshop load month ahead.
You can support Max’s workshop via
IBAN - UA493052990000026209906373602
PayPal - maxim.illyashenko@gmail.com
Alexey Vexler, Employer Brand Manager, played a charity DJ-set
The day war started I was about to have my first music performance for a large audience. Now I remember how devastated I was on 23-th of February when I got to know that my co-player had fled the country and I had to play the set by myself and it seemed so insignificant compared to what came next.
March I spent in a suburban cottage with a group of friends, where shellings were less frequent and dangerous than in Kharkiv, then moved to Ternopil city for another month and at last settled up in Lviv.
Here I made new acquaintances with local musicians and, we decided to fundraise for Kharkiv Volunteer Battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by playing improvised concert in the same bomb shelter citizens lived in mere two month ago.
Event was called FreeDom – a pun on "dom" meaning "home" so it also meant "free our homes".
You can support FreeDom: https://send.monobank.ua/jar/21GtCmfj5e
PayPal: sitwell17@gmail.com
Maxim Matyash, Project Manager, developed "digital sedative" game
After I moved from Kharkiv to relatively safer Dnipro city, my thoughts were always occupied with the news of the war.
I decided to make a simple game as a distraction, working on pet projects was always a calming activity.
Upon watching news about villagers that captured a Russian tank I came up with the idea of a game where tractor should capture occupiers' equipment. Mechanics are similar to the classic snake game, only here you need to drive a tractor and collect tanks.
Development took about a week, I worked on it in my spare time and my girlfriend later helped a lot with testing the app.
In general, the idea of the game is to raise the fighting spirit of the people, to give people the opportunity to be distracted, to cheer them up so that they would smile. After all, if you laugh at the enemy, he is not so fearsome.
You can download the game in AppStore or Google Play
