Hackney men deliver supplies to Ukraine after £3k fundraiser

David Vannen, 51, and Simon Cole, 52, raised £3,300 by doing various fitness challenges in late 2022 and early 2023.

These included a fell run, an army fitness test, a 26-mile hike along the coast and a New Year's Eve mud run.

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David and Simon drove to at least five different cities in Ukraine over the week beginning February 6. 

Simon and David used the money they had raised to buy essential supplies for displaced Ukrainians (Image: By Hand Ukraine)

They spent the week liaising with Ukrainian organisations and international volunteers to buy food, candles and medicines with the money raised.

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Simon said: "On a couple of occasions, we went to meet with young Ukrainian volunteers and went shopping with them. 

"They took the supplies and they are going to go to areas that we decided it was too dangerous to go to. 

"They were very brave - taking risks and going into areas near the front line, and distributing food to people who in some cases are literally living in cellars underground and have been for some time.

"A British volunteer told me they're going gaunt from lack of vitamin D because they're underground hiding from Russian bombardment."

Simon and David's fundraiser was supported by over 60 donations (Image: By Hand Ukraine)

He continued: "We met a load of older women who'd been displaced from the east and their way of coping and getting back at the Russians was crafting camouflage nets to improve the chances of their sons and husbands staying alive on the front line...

"I met a woman at the border who had been living with her kids in the 13th floor of a Kyiv tower block who said it's just too hard. 

"The lift goes out, they can't study, there's no school for them, they can't even study online because of the power cuts..."

The Hackney men said they met Ukrainian women who were making camouflage nets for their sons and husbands fighting on the front lines (Image: By Hand Ukraine)

Simon said the men did not see any fighting, but saw the knock on effects of the war and met a lot of people that had been displaced from their homes in the east.

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He added: "The people received us with such warmth, kindess and generosity.

"People cooked for us - one woman even gave us her apartment for two days, insisted we had it.

"They spoke really highly of Britain, they were really grateful and everywhere we went we would say to them, 'there's only two of us but we have all of our donors behind us - more than 60 people that contributed and they're all supporting as well'."

The essential supplies the two men bought with the money they raised included food, candles and sometimes medicines (Image: By Hand Ukraine)

David added: "For me one of the most affecting experiences was my drive to the Irpin and Bucha suburbs... 

"There were many bullet holes. It was deeply moving to see the kind of place this was, a leafy suburb with parks, cycle paths, restaurants.

"It was a very ordinary place of the kind that can be seen all over Europe, including London.

"This seemed to me to be exactly the sort of place young families move to in order to find a relaxed pace of life.

"If I looked one way I could see a shattered housing block or a bombed-out church. If I looked another way I could see mothers pushing prams.

"Life continued even in the face of such horror."

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