From Nantucket To The Ukrainian Border, With Love

Five Nantucket residents are preparing to leave the island next week to embark on an aid mission to Poland to help some of the millions of refugees streaming over the border from the war torn nation of Ukraine.

The group - which will be working under the banner “Nantucket Cares” - has been soliciting funds from friends and contacts on the island and beyond to build a stockpile of needed items and cash that it intends to deliver in-person at sites in Poland where refugees are massing.

The aid mission is being spearheaded by island resident Tom McCann - the founder of Nantucket Holidays for Heroes - who will be joined by Johnathan and Kasia Chmielewska Rodriguez, Chris Yates, and Kit Noble, all of Nantucket. Their journey will take them to a Polish refugee center, the Warsaw train station, as well as a border crossing station.

“I’ve been watching the television with tears in my eyes,” McCann said. “I said ‘I can’t watch from the couch anymore. It’s driving me crazy.’ I need to go over there and do something, do anything. It hits me in the gut, it's so unfair and so horrific. We’re going to go do the best we can.”

For Chmielewska, the mission will be a homecoming, as she is originally from Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Poland. She had been planning a trip with her husband, Johnathan Rodriguez, to visit her family in Poland when the war broke out last month. They contemplated postponing the trip, but family members continued to encourage them to come. When they ran into McCann on-island recently and told him where they were headed, the idea for the aid mission was born.

“When I told them I wanted to go too, they said let’s go together,” McCann said. “Chris Yates and I were talking, and he said I want to go. I can’t sit here and say I’m not anxious, but I’m overwhelmingly excited.”

Chmielewska will serve as both guide and translator on the journey. She’s already connected them with her contacts and did the bulk of the planning to set up the itinerary for the trip. Chmielewska expressed pride in how her country has responded to the crisis, welcoming millions of women and children refugees from Ukraine.

“The Polish people are helping as much as they can and we’re proud of them and what they’re doing,” she said. “My father said ‘yes, we’re helping them but how are we going to feed them? It’s 2 million people.’ So I’m focused on small places. In the big cities, they have more help. But some of these villages where there are now 50 kids, it’s hard for them. I’m happy to help them. I’m here now, far away. I can send money from here, but I want to be part of this situation and I want to touch this and be close.”

McCann is using his connections both on and off-island to rally support for the mission. While in the long-term he hopes the initiative will formalize into a non-profit, there was no time to get one established before leaving for Poland, he said, and some of the things they want to do - putting cash directly into the hands of refugees to help them on their way - wouldn’t be allowed under the laws governing 501 (c)3 groups. So he’s been soliciting donations to his Venmo account, and yesterday island resident Tracy Long helped establish a formal GoFundMe campaign for Nantucket Cares with a goal of raising $250,000.

“There’s a tremendous amount of emotion in this thing,” McCann said. “And this was founded, started and seeded on Nantucket. That’s why it’s called Nantucket Cares. Small island, big heart.”

For Chris Yates, who had worked with McCann on previous initiatives like Holidays For Heroes, the urge to help in Ukraine was also personal. Through his company, East Wood Trading, Yates has relationships in Poland and Ukraine, having worked with families and companies in those countries.

“We have a connection to that part of the world,” Yates said. “It’s just my personal nature to want to help, which is the case for so many people and you wonder how and what to do. You have the sense that it’s not enough and want to be on the ground there. I had been involved with Tom on quite a few initiatives in the past and I saw what we were able to accomplish on Nantucket. So we had a quick conversation and he said, ‘why don’t you join us?’ I said I’m all in.”

Once they arrive in Poland in early April, Yates said he expects the conditions will be much different than the scenes depicted on television. The goal is to help as many people as they can, Yates said, even while acknowledging the number of refugees in need of assistance is overwhelming. The saying “You can’t do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good you can do,” has resonated for him in recent days.

“To be able to give them the daily necessities and life-saving necessities - water, food, shelter, any of those needs - and to give them hope and a desire to keep going and fighting for freedom,” Yates said. “Another part of this is to document it and get close, up-front personal experiences and bring that back and connect the community to it.”

And that’s where island photographer Kit Noble comes in. N Magazine is sending Noble to document the aid mission and share his images with island community through Nantucket Current and N Magazine. Stay tuned for updates from the mission on NantucketCurrent.com and in the Nantucket Current newsletter. To donate, click here.