Christian Relief Services Emergency Support for Homeless Ukrainian War Refugees
Christian Relief Services was incorporated in 1985 as “A Gentle Voice for Good” and founded on the belief that community partnerships are the best way to solve problems related to poverty not just in the United States but around the world.
Today, that includes providing emergency support for homeless Ukrainian children, women, and senior citizens who have fled the country for their very lives – and leaving their fathers, husbands and sons to fight against the massive, full-scale invasion of their nation’s once-peaceful cities and towns.
Since the war began, we have all borne witness to the destruction, despair and senseless death on the television news and online as the Russian military rains down bombs relentlessly on pediatric hospitals, medical centers, schools, churches and homes.
As of late March, about a month into the war, more than 3.6 million Ukrainians have fled the homeland they love with nothing more than they could carry in their arms, or small suitcases or backpacks, many with small children in tow.
Christian Relief Services, the founding organization of Running Strong for American Indian Youth®, Americans Helping Americans®, Bread and Water for Africa® and other charitable nonprofit organizations is ready to help by rushing critical medicines, medical and personal hygiene supplies to these refugee families through our network of partners who are working on-the-ground in Ukraine, and nearby in Poland, Romania and Moldova.
As an established charity with a long history of helping others around the world, this is not Christian Relief Services’ first foray into helping Eastern European countries.
In fact, over the course of the past 37 years, Christian Relief Services has provided more than $1 billon in program services to millions living in 80 countries, including Ukraine, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere in the region.
As the founder of Christian Relief Services, the late U.S. Air Force Col. Gene Krizek (Ret.) often noted: “The support of a few brings hope to the many.”
We, the citizens of the United States of America are many, the displaced Ukrainian refugees – while numbering in the millions – are relatively few in comparison.
Today, right now, we have the chance to help these families, from newborn infants and young children who have no understanding of what is happening to them and their families and why, to the eldest of senior citizens who survived the trauma of pre-World War II, the horrors of the war itself and the uncertainty of their fate in Eastern Europe in the post-war years, and all those teens, mothers and fathers, in between doing their best just to survive.