With Her Father In Warsaw, Island Resident Spearheads Donations To Ukrainian Refugees

Island photographer Rebecca Love was thousands of miles away from the war in Ukraine, but her father, Pastor John Love, was on the ground at the Polish border. They understood the assignment.

Together, Rebecca and her father coordinated an impromptu relief effort for the Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of their country that blossomed into an incredible outpouring of support. Their effort culminated in Rebecca’s friends, family and clients donating more than $19,000 that she immediately sent to her father in Poland who distributed the funds to the women and children he encountered at the central train station in Warsaw.

The effort began when her father’s church trip to Poland took a humanitarian detour to the train station, and he began to describe to Rebecca what he was seeing there.

“He was just heartbroken,” she said. “Seeing everyone on cots and air mattresses? He gave out that first batch of stuff my mom had given him - clothes and toys. I asked him to send me a picture. It was one of those things where you see it and you have to do more.”

Rebecca took her father’s photo, put it up on her Instagram page and asked if anyone would like to contribute so her father could go back and give out additional items to those in need.

“I thought maybe a couple hundred dollars would come in,” she said. “Almost immediately people started sending contributions on Venmo. In 24 hours we were over $10,000 and I was blown away.”

Their effort had begun to snowball. And so Pastor John Love returned to the train station again and again, and with the help of a translator, it became clear that the refugees he met had plenty of food, blankets and medical supplies thanks to the generosity of the Polish people. What they truly needed, he discovered, was simply cash in-hand to get them to the next place. So he started withdrawing in small increments the money Rebecca had sent him from the Venmo donations and handing out envelopes of cash to the women and children in the train station.

“Each time we gave the refugees money, it became so much more,” said Pastor John Love, who lives in Maryland. “The money turned into hope, courage, and faith for them to continue their journey.”

The photos he sent Rebecca which she then posted on Instagram only inspired more donations. By the time Pastor John Love had to leave Warsaw, there was still a little more than $6,000 in donations that had not yet been distributed. So he identified a young mother, Luba, and her daughter Nastia, who had escaped Ukraine over three days by taking the train to Poland. They had found an apartment to stay at in Warsaw, but needed money to secure it. As it turned out, Luba and Nastia needed approximately $6,000 to stay for the year. The final funds from Nantucket all went to them.

In all, a total of 214 people sent money to Rebecca’s Venmo account which she sent on to her father in Warsaw during his trip.

“It was a mix of clients, past clients, tons of locals, and the donations were from $10 up to $1,000,” she said. “It was mind-blowing.”