A Deep Dive into Razom Emergency Response

Published: February 28, 2022   

Razom’s teams of volunteers – a truly diverse group of individuals and partnering organizations across the US, Europe, and Ukraine – have been urgently working to establish highly efficient procurement, logistics, and distribution channels.  We are constantly working against the clock on this and cannot begin to properly thank all those determined to make it happen!  At the same time, we have been hard at work analyzing the overwhelming amount of support in donations from you and are finally here to deliver some long-awaited updates.  

How the Emergency Response Project Began

Razom was founded on purely volunteering efforts of Ukrainian Americans in NYC during the 2013-14 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine.  Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, believes in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world united by a single goal: to unlock the potential of Ukraine.  We work towards that mission by creating spaces where people meet, partner, and act.

Razom has maintained an open Emergency Response project since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 where we mobilized to procure medical and tactical supplies to the eastern front.  We picked up this project again in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to fundraise for, procure, and deliver medical supplies across covid hot spots in Ukraine.  Since 2014, the Emergency Response fund has always remained open for donors so that we were in a position to act swiftly in support of Ukrainians in crisis situations.  When reports came that Russia began amassing troops on Ukraine’s borders, we began actively promoting for the Emergency Response fund again on February 18, 2022.

Currently our work is focused on purchasing tactical medical supplies (for critical situations like blood loss etc in the field) and medical supplies needed in hospitals.  Thanks to having one of the largest and most active volunteer networks in the Ukrainian-American diaspora, we’ve been able to quickly build a procurement team that purchases life-saving supplies across the US and Europe.  Additionally, thanks to our years of work with volunteers and organizations in Ukraine, we have a logistics team that’s able to transport our supplies from Warsaw, Poland to Ukraine.  

Fundraising Success

Given that Razom is an entirely volunteer-run organization, our grassroots network is our key asset.  All of our fundraising efforts for the Emergency Response project are conducted via social media and word-of-mouth.  Donors have the option to donate via Facebook and Instagram where individuals are able to start their own fundraising campaigns on behalf of an organization.  Razom has spent years amplifying voices from Ukraine in conversations around the world, therefore we were able to swiftly communicate to our community the reality of the war in Ukraine.  We organized resources for those interested in an easily accessible information hub (Linktr.ee/RazomForUkraine) and our awareness and global reach grew at least sevenfold in a matter of one-and-a-half days.  Razom’s list of resources via the Linktree went viral, even so far as to become a poster slogan at major rallies across New York and D.C. and posted through the social media accounts of people with large followings. 

Since fundraising efforts began on February 18th via Facebook, our campaign went viral and people around the world launched independent Instagram fundraisers.  To date, people have donated over $768,000 via social media alone.  These funds will take as much as four weeks to transfer to our accounts, as per the policies of Meta.  However with the increased visibility of Razom as a trusted resource for individuals looking to do something about the injustices and tragedy in Ukraine,  many people chose to donate directly to our PayPal and bank accounts.  Since February 18th, we’ve raised over $1.05M through those efforts.  Within 5 days 14,371 donors contributed directly; the average donation size was under $100.  In total, we expect to have $1.8M to deploy.

The Procurement Process

Over the past eight years, Razom has led several projects or partner projects in the healthcare space.  These include programs that allow doctors based in the US to train doctors in Ukraine (Co-Pilot Project) and organizing container shipments for hospitals in Ukraine.  During the global pandemic Razom led several waves of projects to procure and distribute PPE (in the early days of the pandemic) and later, medical equipment to hospitals.  Thanks to the relationships nurtured and impact of those projects, we were able to identify doctors across the United States who could procure medical supplies on behalf of Razom.  This list of doctors doubled and tripled within hours through word-of-mouth allowing us to purchase more goods at once to fill large shipments. 

The Logistics & Transport Network

Razom is building a scalable, repeatable logistics operation to efficiently prioritize needs and deliver goods to the appropriate destinations.  We’re partnering with organizations in the US, Ukraine, and Poland, that we’ve worked with since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014.  Given the urgency and scale of the needs, we are also actively building new partnerships.  We hope to provide more details soon!

Thank you so much for your continued support.  We’re razom.

Newsletter #1: What Razom’s Doing and the First Urgent Shipment

Published: February 26, 2022   

This begins a series of newsletters from Razom to keep our community updated on our work and impact, and the resources available for you to join in.

Dear Razom Community, 

The past 24 hours have been unimaginable.  The reports that started flooding in from our friends, our loved ones, or the reports that wouldn’t come in for what felt like ages, is a moment in time that we know won’t leave us for a long time.  Razom volunteers have been mobilizing, coordinating, working nonstop across time zones to ensure we understand what Ukraine needs right now and how we can all help.  

We are in awe with the speed that volunteers across multiple states and countries found each other, focused, and organized to carry out this Emergency Response.  Especially when one considers the circumstances and the amount of obstacles that are thrown their way. At times it’s been incredibly overwhelming – especially when websites go down, or russian bots block Facebook fundraisers, or other organizations join the cause so swiftly, accelerating our fundraising efforts that we are simply overwhelmed.  So we’re here to take a collective deep breath and remind ourselves (and others!) about what resources, tools, networks, and tactics are available to us. 

Here’s what we must do (listed in order of urgency, every minute counts right now):

  • Write and call your elected officials to act immediately and enact debilitating sanctions on Russia (including cutting Russian banks off from SWIFT, and an embargo on Russian oil and gas), fully isolate Russia from the international community, provide weapons and equipment for Ukraine, and send financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.  Just do it, here’s a quick guide that’ll help you do it in no time. 
    • If you want to help us translate these guides into as many languages as possible, email Mariya Soroka to get involved at mariya@razomforukraine.org.
  • Join rallies around the world to raise awareness in your community locally, nationally, internationally to demand the world leaders support Ukraine and the public doesn’t take its eyes off the urgency of the situation.  You can find a constantly growing list of rallies here.   
    • Razom volunteers have some big bold ideas for how we can mobilize millions to put pressure on their governments to immediately stand with Ukraine.  Email Mariya Soroka if you want to get involved at mariya@razomforukraine.org 
    • Want to organize a rally? Do it. Share it with Razom and we’ll support you.
  • You can absolutely donate directly to the Ukrainian Army.  It’s pure and simple – heroes never die.   This is where to do it. 
  • There are many reputable, committed organizations that are raising funds for specific things.  They will give us the power to provide much needed humanitarian aid.  Consider donating to these and passing on to your friends and family as well: 
    • Our Razom Emergency Response fundraiser was created to provide urgent help and support in face of extreme and unforeseen situations in Ukraine.  For example right now, we are purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medicine items.  First deliveries started to trickle in and most are en route.  So far we’ve been able to use $50,000 of funds raised, and are continuing to work tirelessly to use them as effectively as possible.  
    • Nova Ukraine’s fundraiser for humanitarian aid is engaging donors on the West Coast.  Razom volunteers are collaborating directly with Nova Ukraine’s.
    • Project Kesher supports a network of multigenerational, trained leaders across Eastern Europe.  Like us, they are collecting an Emergency Fund.  
    • Come Back Alive has been supporting Ukrainian soldiers in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, with special emphasis on technical support, training, and medicine.   
    • Support Hospitals in Ukraine have sent over $4.05M in cargo to hospitals since 2014.  They continue their operation to support this key infrastructure in Ukraine at a time of war.
    • Army SOS is yet another great organization supporting Ukrainian soldiers by purchasing necessary ammunition, shields, intercommunication and reconnaissance facilities, uniforms and food supply. 
    • Voices of Children provides psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by hostilities and have been working on the ground in many villages and towns along the front lines in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. 
    • Sunflower of Peace delivers lifesaving backpacks (for second level medical care according to the standards of tactical medicine) to Ukrainian soldiers, civilians, volunteers, and children.
    • Revived Soldiers Ukraine is yet another organization we’re collaborating directly with to send medical supplies as described above.

As always, if you want to donate your time/ energy/ skills/ smarts/ creativity/ ideas/ connections, email Mariya Soroka at mariya@razomforukraine.org.  That’s all it takes to become a Razom volunteer.  We need translators, writers, social media managers, medical specialists, logistics managers, fundraising specialists, people who have experience with refugee crises, and volunteer managers. 

There’s a straight line from the consistency with which Razom is able to connect people who care and do the work to our effectiveness as an organization.  The work isn’t easy and we don’t know what’s in store in the coming days or weeks, but as we stay up day and night for the people in Ukraine, we also look out for each other as Razom volunteers.

In the first 24 hours, while fundraising efforts were gaining full momentum, we connected an impressive team of Razom volunteers and nearly 20 partner organizations (Ukrainian, European, and US) with the expertise and resilience to create channels through which we could safely deliver much-needed goods across the Ukrainian border.  As of today, there’s a trusted corridor between Poland and Ukraine that links two warehouses where life-saving supplies can be stored and distributed further. Meest-America, the trusted package and freight delivery service providing logistics solutions to Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucus, offered to fill their plane to the full with humanitarian goods from several organizations, including ours. Flying from Clifton, New Jersey, the first shipment is en route right now. We expect it to reach Ukraine in two days.

Given that the situation on the ground in Ukraine shifts rapidly, it is our hope that the channels we’ve established between the US and Ukraine via Poland will be a route of delivery we are able to repeat on multiple occasions.   

Right now, we are actively looking for contacts with international humanitarian organizations or wholesale companies where we can purchase medical and tactical supplies.  Our logistics network is well developed, but the procurement network needs most urgent support.  If you can connect us to people who work or worked with such organizations or companies, we would be grateful.  You can reach out to us at info@razomforukraine.org.  

The latest supplies we purchased are listed below. Please be aware that not all purchases have made it to Clifton, NJ at the same time so we are working to maintain a consistent green corridor between US, Poland, and Ukraine.

  • 100 disposable resuscitators
  • 90 survival wrap packs
  • 1000+ tourniquets
  • 150 water jel burn dressings
  • 30 abdominal pads
  • 20 woven sterile sponges

We will continue to keep you updated and ensure your donations are well spent.  Our team is working on providing a more detailed list of funds raised and spending. Please bear with us as our volunteers are responding on multiple fronts – media, humanitarian, and more – and are trying our best.

Тримаймося,

Razom For Ukraine

Instagram Fundraising is not a Scam

Published: February 26, 2022   

Dear Razom Community,

Thank you all for your tremendous support during this week!  Razom volunteers have been working around the clock to respond to quickly get your generous donations into the hands of the people who need it most.  Many people have asked us about the legitimacy of an Instagram fundraiser on behalf of Razom run by Plant A Tree Co (@platatreeco).   We had questions too and we will share what we have learned here.

To our surprise, no one in our team of volunteers had any prior experience with Instagram’s independent fundraising feature before the morning of February 24, 2022.  (Instagram now allows anyone with an account to launch a fundraiser on behalf of an organization.)  The first thing we ever saw about the fundraiser was an influx of questions from our followers in DMs expressing concern over whether this was a legitimate fundraiser or not.  We took these concerns very seriously, and prioritized playing it safe and acting fast in case people were being scammed.  So we acted almost immediately to block the fundraiser and investigate how much damage had been made.

It turns out we were wrong!

Every single donation that was made under this independent fundraiser will go directly into Razom’s account, albeit with a delay.  Instagram’s reporting mechanism has a built in delay so we don’t see every donation just yet.  As per Meta rules, this money will come into our bank account two weeks after the fundraiser is closed.  

We connected with both Instagram (including escalating the concern through our personal networks of Ukrainian engineers inside the company) and with Plant A Tree Co directly to be able to verify that this indeed is a legitimate fundraiser benefiting Razom.  Thank you @plantatreeco for raising awareness to their 1MM followers about our work to procure medical and tactical supplies for territorial defense forces in Ukraine, and for allowing us to discover this Instagram functionality.  We are looking forward to continuing to use this functionality as effectively as possible.  Just like you all started using facebook fundraisers for Giving Tuesday and your birthdays over the years, we’re looking forward to doing the same (and more!) via Instagram. 

We are so sorry for the confusion this has caused.  But we are grateful for how well you all look out for each other and Razom.

We take reporting to you on money raised and spent very seriously, and aside from the formal Annual Reports that we publish on our website, we’re maintaining a reporting document (to be published shortly with link) on Emergency Response that will be regularly updated with stories, fundraising status, and a summary of our procurements.

We ask that if you see someone questioning the legitimacy of this fundraiser that you send them the link to this page to educate and clarify.  Since publishing this statement, the fake warning about this fundraiser has been removed from the VOXUA site, our social media accounts have been updated, and the money raised directly from @plantatreeco’s fundraiser is hitting our account. 

We are grateful for your support.

First 100k Spent on Medical Supplies

Published: February 25, 2022   

Within the Emergency Response efforts, our team is working day and night on finding and purchasing the needed medical supplies.


The initial plan was to purchase everything needed in Ukraine, but as it usually happens Ukrainian suppliers ran out of gear and med materials within the first orders from the government. Our current plan is to purchase medical supplies in the US and Europe and deliver it to Ukraine as soon as possible.
At the moment we have ordered life-saving medical supplies for the amount of about $100,000 and continue purchasing as you are reading this post.


Among the first purchases are:
– Rescue CAT Tourniquets (GEN 7),
– Israeli Emergency Bandages (6″, 100/box),
– QuilClot Combat Gauzes (Z Fold),
– IV Start Kits,
– Nasopharyngeal Airways,
– Bag Valve Masks,
– Sterile ABD Pads
– and Iridium Satellite Phones.


The receipts for $50K are attached. We highly value transparency and will share the other receipts soon, as well as all the updates of further purchases. Please, be patient, it’s an emergency, and we are doing our best.

Donate today to provide relief and financial support to Ukraine in the time of need.

Statement on the Current Situation

Published: February 25, 2022   

NEW YORK – Razom for Ukraine has issued the following statement regarding the ongoing crisis:

The United States must act immediately. The future of Europe and the world is at stake. Millions of Ukrainian lives will be affected.  It is naive to believe that this kind of unprovoked attack and disruption of the world order will not affect Americans as well.

Razom for Ukraine is making an urgent plea for the following action plan:

  • Protect Ukrainian air space
    • Along with European and NATO allies, request the enforcement of a “no-fly” zone over Ukrainian territory
  • Continue to transfer defensive weaponry and equipment to Ukraine
  • Cut Russia off the SWIFT international banking system and levy additional sanctions against Russia
  • Fully isolate Russian Federation leadership from the international community by all means
  • Deliver financial assistance to strengthen the economy of Ukraine
  • Provide humanitarian assistance

Razom is accepting donations to assist the people of Ukraine. Donate directly so that there is no delay in your funds arriving.

via check made payable to Razom (mailed to 140 Second Avenue NY, NY 10003)

See a list of resources and other credible places to donate at: @RazomForUkraine | Linktree

Spread the word by sharing this now and donating here.

Razom for Ukraine

Razom is a 501(c)(3) organization. Donations and gifts are deductible to the full extent allowable under IRS regulations. Razom, which means “together” in Ukrainian, believes deeply in the enormous potential of dedicated volunteers around the world united by a single goal: to unlock the potential of Ukraine. Razom works towards that mission by creating spaces where people meet, partner, and act.

Razom Book Club. Dom’s Dream Kingdom

Published: February 9, 2022   

On February 7th, Razom Book Club gathered to discuss Victoria Amelina’s book “Dom’s Dream Kingdom” (Дім для Дома), and the following afternoon they met with Victoria Amelina virtually.

“As if we’ve been reading the same book for several years,” said Irena Chalupa, “a book about memory, how to prevent forgetting.” Indeed, in the book Dom’s Dream Kingdom, the Tsiliik family, who live in Stanislav Lem’s old apartment at 4 Lepkoho Street, do not know how to talk to each other about the past. How to tell about the fact that people who are no longer in Lviv used to live in this apartment, how to remember a family history that you want to forget so much, how to find out who you are, if your parents have been trying to forget for many years.

This is how Yana Zavada, another member of the Razom Book Club, described the conversation: “In our book club we have already read about the heterogeneous Donbass in “The Death of Leo Cecil Made Sense”. Now it was a topic of heterogeneous Lviv (some in the club were very surprised by this, by the way). In these literary parallels, I see a movement towards each other. We are the one country. Cool. Original.”

In the words of the novel:
“The house where you are remembered is scattered like the wreckage of frozen rivers above the Earth. I can now say “my city”, but it is as absurd as saying “my air”. Even the air we breathe has already been someone’s and will be. Our air while it is with us. Our house, our home while it is with us. And we are all always in this home – each at our own depth.”

These topics were discussed with to Victoria among others, such as why she is not writing now as much as she is preparing for the New York Literary Festival and what she is planning to do in Poland with the Conrad Scholarship that Victoria won earlier this year. will begin in April. We invite you to watch this conversation, and if it inspires you, then read Victoria Amelina’s book “Дім Для Дома”.


Learn more about Razom Book Club and join the Facebook group to stay informed about the upcoming readings and meetings with Ukrainian authors.

Co-Pilot Project 2021 Update

Published: December 30, 2021   

In 2021 we continued our work in Ukraine with the Co-Pilot Project with one formal trip (led by Mariya Soroka and Luke Tomycz) during which we performed several epilepsy and brain tumor surgeries with surgical partners in both Kyiv and Lutsk.  A highlight of this trip was an anatomic hemispherectomy – the first to our knowledge ever performed in Ukraine – on a little girl in Lutsk who had a recurrence of her seizures, but again is seizure free and doing very well after this repeat surgery.  We also traveled to Uzhgorod where we had a busy day of consultation with the local epilepsy team on various complex epilepsy patients who came from all around the country.  


Unfortunately, because of the COVID pandemic, trips by both Dr. Matthew Geck (from Austin, Texas) to perform scoliosis surgery and Dr. James Liu (from Newark , NJ) to perform skull base surgery were canceled this year.  But we hope to reschedule both of these trips as restrictions loosen.  Furthermore, several of the Ukrainian surgeons who were slated to visit Dr. Forbes in Cincinnati have had their fellowships delayed.   


Thanks to connections made by Dr. Vitalii and Yulia Shama and Oleksa Martinouk, we were able to speak with two new surgical partners in Europe, Drs. Schmitz in Germany and Dr. Rocka in Lithuania, both of whom are interested in training Ukrainian residents and setting up an international fellowship/observership in coordination with our team.


Finally, with the help of Maria Borisovska PhD, we were able to locate and purchase an EEG amplifier and this was transported to Dr. Kostiuk, the chief of epilepsy surgery at Romadanov Institute.  He has already used this for intraoperative electrocorticography and we hope to assist them in their first extra-operative mapping case.  This technology should substantially improve this center’s capabilities to offer surgery to a wider number of patients with drug-resistant, refractory epilepsy.  


We hope during the next trip which is planned for April/May of 2022 we will reach and surpass an exciting milestone: the 100th major neurosurgical operation conducted by our team in Ukraine in cooperation with our partner surgeons!  We hope to plan an annual dinner and fundraising event in 2022 following this trip.
  

Learn more about the project here.

Donate to support neurosurgical training for Ukrainian doctors:


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Oxygen concentrators delivered to more Ukrainian hospitals

Published: April 24, 2021   

Our second fundraiser in support of Ukrainian hospitals fighting COVID-19 is going strong. As yet another spike in new cases has swamped the country, medical institutions and non-profit organizations from all over Ukraine are in search of life-saving oxygen for patients who cannot do without air support. Your recent donations helped purchasing the three more oxygen concentrators that were delivered to clinics and hospital in three different oblasts, all specifically focused on treating the coronavirus patients.

Thus, one concentrator was delivered to the Vorokhta outpatient clinic (Ivano-Frankivsk region), one more to the Shiryaiv CDH (Odessa region), and another one to the Bilokorovytsia outpatient clinic (Zhytomyr region).

We thank everyone for your support, generous donations and information sharing! We are also thankful for the outstanding cooperation with the non-profit Patients of Ukraine (Patsienty Ukrainy), who have been working hard to find, purchase and deliver the much-needed medical equipment to various Ukrainian cities, towns and villages!

Razom volunteers and supporters stand with courageous Ukrainian doctors, outpatient and health departments’ staff. We are deeply grateful for your tireless work! You are not alone. We are – razom – together!

Please consider supporting our Facebook fundraiser or donating at the Razom Emergency Response page.

Learn more about Razom efforts to help Ukraine fight the pandemic:
– Initial Pandemic Response
– Emergency Response Webinars
– Over $45 000 Delivered in Supplies to Health Care Workers

Mondegreen to be published in English

Published: April 23, 2021   

It is unbelievable, but our Kickstarter campaign to publish Rafeyenko’s book in English has reached the initial goal amount of $5,500 — just two days after we launched it! 

We THANK everyone so very much for incredible support of this important book. 

Kickstarter campaign will still run for another month as per the site’s rules. The amount collected will cover the absolute minimum necessary to complete the translation, but the overall cost of the translation and rights to the book are a lot higher. And so every cent we collect above the initial goal amount will still go towards supporting the work of  Volodymyr Rafeyenko and towards fully covering the cost of the translation so that the writer and the translator can continue their work!  

Volodymyr Rafeyenko had to leave his home city of Donetsk immediately after the occupation by Russian-sponsored forces has begun. He started writing about the traumatic experience right away, too: first in the novel ‘Longue Duree’ (Dovhi chasy), which appeared in Russian and in Ukrainian (in Marianna Kiyanovska’s translation), and later in ‘Mondegreen.’ 

Volodymyr left his home when he was 45, having to abandon everything he had worked to achieve, and beginning from scratch in Kyiv. In one of his interviews, he compared the process to what Johann Sebastian Bach must have experienced when he had to bury four children from his first marriage, and then seven children from his second marriage. That experience of excruciating pain always accompanies Volodymyr, who now lives at a fellow writer’s dacha in Bucha near Kyiv, where he continues to write and from where he teaches literature courses online.   

We believe that it is incredibly important for the world to learn more about such experiences that many Ukrainian citizens have gone through as a result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Your contribution allows us to change the way the world perceives Ukraine — and it will hopefully generate more support for our young democracy. There are many facets to Ukraine’s history and culture, and not all of them are tragic. With this campaign, we’re beginning with what’s very critical right now, but we hope to be able to count on your support in the future, too, when we campaign to translate and publish other works of Ukrainian literature in English. 

Please stand with us as we do it.  

You can learn more and contribute to the campaign at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/razomforukraine/mondegreen-by-volodymyr-rafeyenko

Passionate about Ukrainian modern literature? – Join our Razom Book Club.

And learn more about and support Razom Culture which promotes awareness of Ukraine’s vibrant art and culture through a variety of collaborations and events.

Meet and Greet with Ievgen Klopotenko

Published: April 14, 2021   

On a rainy Sunday of April 11th, Razom was honored to host Ukrainian chef Ievgen Klopotenko and Veselka’s chef Dima Martseniuk at a very special Razom Meet & Greet.

You may know Ievgen Klopotenko, who is also a Master Chef Ukraine winner and a successful restaurant owner in Kyiv, because of his ongoing effort to have borshch recognized as part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage by UNESCO. Ievgen actively works to revive centuries-old Ukrainian recipes, modernize them and show Ukraine’s rich heritage through food. He favors local ingredients in a true farm-to-table approach.

Ievgen spoke about Ukrainian self-identity, the role of food in Ukrainian history, and broke some myths and stereotypes about Ukrainian cuisine – it is not only about boiled stuffed dumplings (varenyky), cabbage rolls (holubtsi) and beet soup (borshch). He absolutely captivated the audience with his high energy, passion, and knowledge. Everyone was mesmerized!

It has been a while since we were able to meet in-person like this, so thank you to everyone who RSVPed, masked up, and showed up. We hope you enjoyed meeting Ievgen and Dima and we hope to host many more events like this in the future.

We’re also grateful to Andrew Stasiw for allowing us to host this event at Saint George Academy, a center of Ukrainian life in New York.

And although the rain forced us to spontaneously move the scheduled rooftop event indoors, we especially thank Maryna Prykhodko, Dora Chomiak, and all of the amazing volunteers who helped make this event run as smooth as possible, while adhering to all safety guidelines! We get things done when we work RAZOM.

Our special Thank You to Volodymyr Shahay and Olesia Pryshlyak for capturing all the unforgettable emotions in such wonderful photos.

Learn more about and support Razom Culture that celebrates and promotes awareness of Ukraine’s vibrant art and culture through a variety of collaborations and events.