Crisis management I am comfortable with. Stress, last minute, all of that I can handle. Getting organized and making lists and doing admin? Not exactly my forte. As you can see from this photo.
A quick update.
I didn’t even manage to write a Substack yesterday (I am sorry for that) because I spent the better part of yesterday trying to answer some of the HUNDREDS of messages I received form Ukrainian women in Austria asking for €50 Hofer gift cards. It was an overwhelming response after I posted in a Russian-speaking mommy Facebook group in Austria which has welcomed thousands of Ukrainian new members.
Why Hofer? Well it has good fresh fruit and vegetables and cheaper prices than Billa or Spar. Groceries are a bit of an oligopoly in Austria, and Ukrainians living here have already figured out the most economical options. Clearly there is huge demand for food. Clearly, this is a state failure.
Payments of €215 per adult and €100 per child when they happen (because many write me saying they have not received any money yet despite arriving here in early March) are not even enough to buy food for a month at current prices. Rent subsidies will not be paid out until June. I received a message from two sisters in their 70s who used their food money to pay rent. I will try to get their address today and get a voucher to them as soon as possible.
Then the unsolicited advice started to roll in from all sorts of other volunteers with their own projects, each of which tried to tell me how I should do this. And I thought, you know what? If you know everything better already, then just do it yourself as you see fit. Nothing is preventing anyone else from raising money and buying food gift cards. It takes some time to buy them because you can only get them in the shops, and then you have to do the admin work of setting meeting points (have two this morning hence the fast typing and zero proofreading, sorry). For those who live far away from Vienna, I am trying to send them by post. I hope this will work.
When I wrote this last night, I was feeling really down because I was running out of money and couldn’t meet all the request in my inbox (I still cannot open all the messages). A generous donor who I assume would like to remain anonymous jumped in with a very large donation, and I woke up feeling a lot more comfortable that we will slowly (ok, I) be able to work off the list of requests, prioritising the most urgent cases, to the best of my ability (imperfect science). I am also making cards available to my fellow train station volunteers as I feel they know as well as I do who really needs the help.
Also, this happened yesterday, too. It isn’t an easy conversation to have, but I did it gently, explained who I was, what I was doing, and the family then agreed to take a gift card. If you have your eyes and ears open, you too can help Ukrainians shopping in your own local stores. They are, indeed, everywhere at the moment in Austria.
I also had the pleasure of meeting Lena from Dnipro! Highly recommend if you are in Vienna.
Good news is this grocery card project is getting media attention and I hope from next week that will allow us to receive more cards. I am trying to think about how I can scale up to help more people while still being the filter differentiating between real need vs just asking because something is free. I also received a separate donation and will take McDonalds €10 vouchers with me when I volunteer at the train station ticket desk for a few hours later today. Crazy busy but good crazy busy. I have been sharing a bit of the news here and there but I haven’t been able to consume enough of it to give you any kind of analysis at the moment. Others do that well too and I feel like my work here on the ground is more helpful right now.
This is a nice, uplifting story. I’ll end on that note:
Thank you for reading and sorry for not publishing yesterday! And thank you for your support, all of you who sent funds and gift cards. Each one makes a huge difference. These are difficult times for many Ukrainian women, kids, and elderly who have decided to stay in Austria.
Go go go! Love the response. Love the blow wave. You always amaze. Good luck with the interview. I am looking forward to reposting it. Try to get in a couple lines in English for us who are mono-lingual. ;)