WESTFIELD – Rows of tables topped with food, medical supplies, clothing, diapers and hygiene products were packed into the Full Gospel Church last week after the Greater Westfield community gave an unprecedented response to the church’s request for donations to the people of Ukraine.

Dozens of volunteers frantically loaded boxes, folded clothes, and sorted items at the church Friday afternoon as a tractor-trailer waited outside to bring the supplies to New Jersey, where they were flown to Ukraine to assist refugees and other Ukrainians affected by the military invasion by Russian armed forces.

After Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Westfield’s Full Gospel Church put out a request for donations to be sent to what many of the church’s members call their home country. At first, those organizing the donation drive expected a modest response, but the generosity of Greater Westfield residents – many of whom are immigrants from Ukraine or Russia, or can trace their ancestry to those countries – exceeded expectations.

The church turned itself into a warehouse for organizing the donations. As the deadline for donations approached on March 4, church volunteers quickly packed together the most important items and filled a tractor-trailer to the brim. Much more remains at the church.

Drive organizer Tania Shvyryd said the tractor-trailer truck bringing the supplies to New Jersey – where they will be flown to Poland – only brought a fraction of what was given. The rest will be put into shipping containers and sent to Ukraine by sea, which will take longer, but allow more supplies to be sent at once.

“Every day until 12 o’clock we were here packing everything up, the tables were cleared, then the next day, same thing,” said Shvyryd, who moved from Ukraine to the United States in 2007.

In addition to the donations of food and supplies, the church accepted monetary donations to be used to help fund the people getting the supplies from Poland to the Ukrainian border. As of March 4, it had raised more than $10,000. St. Mary’s High School in Westfield also served as a donation site for Full Gospel Church’s drive.

Because of the intense support for the donation drive, it has been extended to March 12.
Tania Shut, church member and drive organizer, said that the church and its members are beyond grateful for the community’s response. Many Full Gospel Church members still have family in Ukraine and Russia, and Shut said they wanted to support the country as much as they could.

“The fact that we were able to make a difference by collecting all of this and sending help is amazing,” said Shut.

She said it is likely that the church will stop taking donations after March 12 without extending it again, as everybody is a volunteer and has been working practically non-stop since the drive started.

Mikhail Nazarets donated his time and his truck to bring the supplies down to New Jersey. Nazarets is also from Ukraine, having moved here in 2000. He methodically brought the boxes of supplies to the back of his trailer as church members brought them outside. He said he only wanted to do his part.

“I’m just here to do what I can,” said Nazarets.