Ukraine native Bogdana Kashperovetska keeps busy so she can sleep at night.
The Naperville wife and mother of two girls is worried as she watches the devastation inflicted by the Russian military on her homeland. Her parents, Mykhailo and Halyna,are elderly, and uprooting them from their home isn’t an option. Friends and other relatives say they’re unwilling to leave while family members remain to defend the country.
Kashperovetska takes some comfort knowing her hometown of Vinnytsia in west-central Ukraine hasn’t fallen under the attack. Yet news reports leave her haunted, like the one Wednesday of the bombed theater in Mariupol, where hundreds of people, including children, had taken shelter.
To ease her fears that loved ones could become the next target of Russian missiles, Kashperovetska started the Sunflower Alliance charity to aid the people in her homeland. The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine.
As of Friday, the nonprofit — sunfloweralliance.org — had collected roughly $4,200 of its $10,000 goal.
Kashperovetska already has tapped some of the donation money to pay the $135 per bag airline fee for six pieces of luggage volunteers carried on a flight to Poland. It’s the fastest way she knows to get supplies over to Ukraine.
The luggage, collected from Naperville residents, was packed by Kashperovetska with $5,000 in medical supplies from a list she posted on Amazon.
“It is just something that I can do to get my head wrapped around something else, just to keep myself busy and occupied,” Kashperovetska said. Her hope, she said, is that she’s so tired from the day’s activities, “I will just fall asleep immediately and not keep thinking about those things.”
Besides baggage fees, the charity’s money has funded gasoline for volunteers picking up the luggage in Poland and delivering the supplies throughout Ukraine where they are needed most.
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Kashperovetska said her fingers are crossed that the supplies will reach their destination.
“You can pack, you can send, you can pay and you can pray,” she said, because one never knows what might happen next.
A friend shared with her a story of a missing Ukrainian man who used his car to drive escaping refugees out of the country. “They don’t know what happened. Probably he was killed. They don’t know,” she said.
Kashperovetska said while messaging to a volunteer in Ukraine with details about the arriving medical supplies, she was surprised the person was online at 4:30 a.m. The volunteer replied by asking Kashperovetska to wait because sirens were sounding to alert residents to missiles in the area.
“That’s the reality,” she said.
Despite the circumstances, Kashperovetska draws strength from the outpouring of support from organizations like Naperville Neighbors United and group member Saily Joshi, of Naperville.
Joshi said after searching for luggage at thrift stores around the Naperville to no avail, she posted something on social media. “All of us have at least one suitcase we don’t use,” she said.
The response was so great, Joshi had to tell people to hold off because she’d gathered more than 130 pieces within days.
The reason the luggage drive was popular is because people want to donate more than money, she said.
“You want to do something that is tangible,” Joshi said, like the person who donated the suitcase brought over when emigrating from Scotland. “This makes you feel good.”
The desire to raise money and awareness of Ukraine’s plight is reflected in a bracelet project undertaken by Kashperovetska’s daughters, who are 8 and 12 and attend Indian Prairie District 204 schools.
The girls are stringing blue and yellow beads — the colors of the flag — with letter beads saying Ukraine.
Kashperovetska said she asked her girls if the bracelets should include the phrase, “stop the war.”
“People cannot stop the war, but people can show you support,” her 8-year-old told her, she said.
“It’s such a deep thought,” Kashperovetska said. “We cannot stop war, unfortunately. But we can do so many things to support.”
Which is why over the weekend, Kashperovetska plans to research a larger project for her charity that will have long-term effects, such as the purchase a piece of medical equipment or provide for the care of orphans whose families were killed, she said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon. We will still have those refugees, broken families and kids without any family,” she said.