Help for Ukrainian people this winter

[wnylib]

Power shortages are common in Ukraine now due to Russian attacks on civilian targets. Ukraine rations its electrical power in order to keep hospitals and other essential services operating.

Ukrainian winters are brutally cold.

Is it feasible that we could provide Ukrainian people with heat and light through a massive fundraising and purchase of battery powered lanterns and blankets, with a huge supply of batteries? Some battery operated blankets, sleeping bags, and camping heaters are rechargeable. People could recharge then during periods when rationed power is available to them.

It would mean purchasing several thousand of these items and shipping them to Ukraine.

Could this be done?

[littlemissmartypants]

1. Just in case you didn't already know...❤️

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217073340

[secondwind]

2. My daughter has been knitting gloves for a few months now.

[wnylib]

3. That's a good action on behalf of

people who will need them.

I am thinking of people in their homes after 5pm when the sun is down. They will be in darkness when electrical power is off. They will have no means of heat unless they have a home in which they can safely burn wood. They will need their whole bodies warmed up while indoors.

Those of us in cold winter climates know how cold it can get indoors when there is a power outage for a few hours or days. Imagine an entire winter like that. Babies and old people will be most vulnerable, but everyone will be in danger of frostbite or freezing to death.

You can pile on blankets, but when it is consistently cold day after day after day, the cold seeps in through blankets.

Without gas or electricity, people would not even have the ability to make hot drinks or hot food for themselves.

Battery powered heaters exist for camping purposes. They could be used for warming up one room in a house. Battery powered blankets and sleeping bags could enable people to stay warm while getting needed rest. They could be used for warming themselves up in the daytime.

Battery powered lanterns could give them light during long winter nights. Used sparingly (to preserve the battery power) they would allow people to see when necessary.

[PufPuf23]

4. Down comforters for the Winter cold.

GIs had down sleeping bags in WWII, could still buy them at Surplus Stores in the 60s.

Spent a Winter not that many years ago when could not pay for heat and relied on down and fleece.

[wnylib]

5. That occurred to me, too.

Besides down filled comforters, there are some thin, insulating fabrics that can keep people warm.

Lanterns would help with light. They cost more than candles, but are safer.

However, if the power is completely shut off by Russian shelling, then people would not have clean water to drink or bathe in because water treatment facilities would not be able to function without power. In that case, the people would need to evacuate to another location. Zelenskyy is already saying that evacuation is a possibility for Kiev.

[Aristus]

9. We called them mummy bags, although the terminally vulgar among us called them fart sacks.

We were still using them in the 90's. Mine came in very handy when I was in the Gulf in 1991. We were there in the winter, and for anyone who doesn't know, it gets cold in the desert! Really cold. It got down below freezing, except there was no moisture to freeze. I bundled up at night in my mummy bag, wrapped up in my poncho liner (very warm and quilted) and with the opening laced closed with nothing but my nose showing. That's how I got through those cold, cold desert nights.

[panader0]

12. I had a surplus army mummy bag and the cheaper down they used still had some quills.

So they poked you a lot. I later could afford a North Face bag with prime goose down and no quills.
During my youth I slept many nights, as you say, with only my nose sticking out. I'm in So Az at 4650 ft,
and it gets in the teens many times in the winter. Fart sacks indeed!

[Aristus]

14. I lived on Fort Huachuca when my Dad was in the Army. The elevation was 4,898 ft.

We got sizzling hot summers, but we had snow in the winter. I loved living there.

[panader0]

15. I live outside of Sierra Vista. My dad is buried at Bonnie Blink cemetery on the post.

[2naSalit]

6. K&R

Also those hand and foot warmer packets that last for 6-10hrs.

[wnylib]

8. I thought about those, too.

I recently went through my closet where I had stored my winter coats, hats, scarves, etc. I came across some of those hand and foot warmers that I had forgotten about.

So I am wondering what would do the most good for keeping the Ukrainian people warm indoors when they have no power. And what is possible to raise enough money for and get it to the people who need it.

So, in a few days, maybe tomorrow, I will be talking to a woman who has been fundraising and personally delivering items to Ukraine since the start of the war. Her focus now is in getting life saving medical equipment to Ukrainian soldiers. But in the past, she has sent humanitarian supplies like pet food, water, etc. She has been in and out of Ukraine, using a base in Poland, to deliver supplies and take refugees out. She also arranged for a refugee shelter for women and children in Poland. So she has first hand knowledge of the people, their needs, and methods of getting supplies shipped there. I will ask her about ways to help the Ukrainian people through the winter. And I will report back here on what she says.

[electric_blue68]

10. Good idea!

[Delphinus]

7. I would

like to help them in some way and am following this.

[wnylib]

11. Glad to hear that. See the last paragraph of my #8.

[panader0]

13. I wonder if there is a way to "adopt" a family. Directly. Is the mail service reliable there?