ORANGEVALE, Calif. — House of Bread Church in Orangevale has partnered with Convoy of Hope to send humanitarian supplies to Ukraine.
On Wednesday, several volunteers gathered in the parking lot of the church to assemble thousands of boxes filled with food, medicine, and hygiene products to aid in the devastating crisis in Ukraine.
"The beautiful thing is the community united around the need and you have everybody. You have churchgoers and non-churchgoers," said House of Bread Pastor Vlad Kotyakov. "We do have a lot of Russian people that are coming and they're supporting the cause because they understand the pain that is happening there."
Kotyakov says he's grateful for the many generous donations that have poured in from organizations and members of the community which has already loaded up several semi-trucks.
"We've already sent seven containers of aid, medicine, we've sent hygiene and first aid kits. I'm so thankful to Kaiser, to Mercy San Juan that came through, brought palettes of medicine to help out Ukrainians that are going through pain right now," Kotyakov said.
Kotyakov was born in Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 11. Despite living in Sacramento for most of his life, he says the last few weeks have been emotional for him — filled with pain and tears watching his home country under attack.
"It becomes too overwhelming. It becomes too painful to a point where you lose sleep," he said.
Kotyakov's brother along with other members of the church have been on the ground in Ukraine providing assistance and helping refugees escape the war.
"A lot of people are running for their lives, but a lot of people, they chose just to be there to meet the need," said Kotaykov. "The drivers are saying the people are running through fields, people are running through forests — and what they're trying to do, they're trying to literally stop the cars and begging them 'Can you take us? Can we be part of your van or your bus?' so we have to buy seven-seater vans in order to bring them out from eastern Ukraine."
Despite being over 6,000 miles away from Ukraine, Kotyakov says his church will continue to expand its efforts to provide critical support to those stuck in the war zone and for those fleeing the war.
"We're actually gonna take it to multiple locations in Sacramento. We're gonna be partnering with non-profit organizations and then rolling this out in a few weeks and then it's gonna happen in other states," said Kotyakov.
House of Bread Church is accepting food, medicine, clothing, and money donations. If you'd like to volunteer, you can sign up on their website.
