AID SHIPMENTS TO UKRAINE HAVE THIS TORONTO DELIVERY COMPANY ‘SLAMMED IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY’
By Nicholas Keung
(Toronto Star)
This Ukrainian-Canadian family business has offered free deliveries of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and is running out of warehouse space due to overwhelming public response.
This Ukrainian-Canadian company has been connecting the diaspora community and the old country for more than three decades. But that connection has never been as important as now when their motherland is under siege by the Russians.
The phone at the Etobicoke-based family business Meest — and its branches around the world — has been ringing off the hook since Russia invaded Ukraine last Thursday.
Concerned people in Canada were looking for ways to deliver necessities as well as medical and light military supplies to people in Ukraine, and the owner of Meest, which has 5,000 employees worldwide, responded, offering free shipping for humanitarian aid to the country.
“We’re all in it together. Meest literally means bridge, so we’ve been a bridge between the Ukrainian diaspora community and Ukraine for over 30 years,” said Iryna Kisil, daughter of the company’s founders, Rostyslav and Anna.
“We are all very deeply connected to Ukraine and our community and our people. And all over the world, we are now pivoting to try to help Ukraine as much as possible. We’re all doing what we can.”
Packages large and small have been pouring in over the past week and the response has been so overwhelming that the company needed to find extra warehouse space and recruit volunteers to help process the deliveries around the clock.
The first shipment of 10,000 kilograms of humanitarian aid will leave Toronto by air on Friday to an undisclosed neighbouring country before being delivered over land to Lviv in western Ukraine and dispersed to Ukrainian relief organizations. Shipments will continue daily.
“We’re slammed in the best possible way. We have volunteers coming in every day to sort packages. The positivity and response for Ukraine and the ‘Stand with Ukraine Movement’ is very strong,” said Kisil, whose father is now in Ukraine overseeing the operation.
“We’re on the ground and people are risking (their) lives, delivering packages. We’ve been working overtime, especially in the warehouse to intake all of these packages. All of us are working 24/7. Everyone is doing what they can.”
There are lots of logistical obstacles to deliver the supplies within Ukraine, said Kisil, because of the ongoing military actions. There’s also the bureaucratic challenges posed by the Canadian government in issuing export permits.
“I would like if you could make an appeal to the Canadian government to do more, to start allowing more of this type of aid and giving us the permits,” she said.
Kisil said the free shipping to Ukraine was made possible by the BCU Foundation, a Toronto charity, while Meest provides the logistical expertise and support. She encourages people to donate to BCU’s Ukraine Humanitarian Aid Fund that supports the casualties of war and their families, as well as displaced persons who need help there.
