Ukrainian Housing & Essentials Initiative

We raised $3000 before this GoFundMe was set up! A big thank you to Jackie Perrin and the Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation for your contributions.

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Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation Ukrainians of Calgary Donation Center

How it Started:  

As many important initiatives do, the Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation Ukrainian Housing & Essentials Initiative started small. It began simply as Dan Brodeur, Director of Operations at Pinnacle Wealth Brokers and wife Ksenia, helping a family fleeing Ukraine by opening their house to host, an effort that is being repeated in many places around the world.  

Then, an effort to secure donations to assist the family of six with basic needs became a small donation hub in a garage.  Quickly, the need for funding as well as more space was identified as many more families arrived in Calgary requiring assistance with housing and essentials.  

How it Developed:  

The Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation stepped in to support the initial efforts, and the Ukrainian Refugee Housing & Essentials Fundraiser was launched. Shortly thereafter, two more garages opened to meet the growing demand for clothing and household items.  

With the support of the Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation and the initial financial donations as well as the generous donations of household items, Dan and Ksenia have so far hosted and transitioned a family of six, including fully furnishing their new accommodations in only 15 days! They also hosted and transitioned a family of five, plus their dog, that were in Calgary but found themselves suddenly without housing, including fully furnishing their new accommodations. Then, they fully furnished a third family of three in their new accommodations. Additionally, they provided support to dozens of families with household items including furniture, clothing, kitchen supplies, bikes, scooters, baby formula, cribs, strollers, beds, decor, and comforts of home food packages. However, even with the early success, the efforts were falling behind the needs.  

How it’s Going: 

The scope of the efforts has recently changed dramatically. The most important mandate of the campaign was to ensure we exhausted all avenues of support before deploying donated funds. As the campaign grew and families were transitioned into accommodations, we quickly identified that the biggest gap was logistics. Specifically, space to manage donations and transport for both obtaining furniture donations and of course, delivering it all to the new accommodations when the families get the keys to accommodations.   

One phone call dramatically changed the scope in the most incredible way. On an unrelated call, Adam Hoffman from the Pinnacle Institutional Access Fund asked: how is the Ukraine program going, is there anything you need? The answer was simple, yes, we need space to manage donations. The response was also simple, I think I could find that for you!  

Amazing how a single phone call can change everything.  About a week later, Adam delivered in a BIG way. Suddenly, we had the keys to a space that was beyond our imaginations both in size and functionality, and just in time too!  

The morning after receiving the keys, and celebrating a little, we arrived to a donation pick up. We were expecting to have a couple of pick-up truck loads worth to deliver to the new space, which was exciting.  

To our surprise, upon arrival we learned that the donation was going to be MUCH MUCH larger than expected. We learned that the generous donator, after vetting us and the Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation, was donating the entire estate belongs of a departed family member as it would have made her happy to know her belongings were going to such an important cause.  

Thanks to the donations via the Pinnace 20/20 Foundation, we were able to rent a U-Haul truck in short order to action this incredible donation. Dan picked up the truck and Ksenia hit the phones looking for help and did help ever arrive.  

Six men and one teenager, a mix of Ukrainians dropped what they were doing and came right over to help immediately. It was an awesome day, we all worked hard and happily and got the move completed in record time.  And the Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation Ukrainians of Calgary Donation Center was off to an incredible start. 

That is just one of many stories from the last week. Since that day, a team of volunteers has been busy moving and organizing. They have moved the contents of the network of garages to the space and are now focused on moving in and organizing the inventory of multiple other organizations that have reached out asking to amalgamate given they also see the value of one centralized hub that can best meet the needs, in the most dignified way, of the steady stream of refugee families arriving in Calgary.  

How Can Financial Donations Help?  

Operations and Logistics  

We are now at the stage and scope where additional funds will be required to manage the operations. While the space has been donated, there are ongoing costs to maintain it. Additionally, funds are required for transport needs, including truck rentals, fuel and volunteer support.  

Donations will continue to flow in, two additional donations consisting of the entire furniture contents of houses have come forward. And the inventory will start to flow out soon as appointments to “shop” the donation hub are already booking.  

Housing and Programming 

There are gaps in support that donations to The Pinnacle 20/20 Foundation Ukrainian Housing & Essentials Initiative can fill, including partial rent subsidies, transit passes and children’s programming such as soccer camps, dance and music lesson and other activities focused on life enrichment with the intention of ensuring children integrate into their new lives in Canada.  

Food Packages  

While the food bank has proven to be a great resource for families, there are specific needs that are not available. Specifically, items for meal preparation that reduce culture shock by providing the needs to cook as the families did in the Ukraine. Such as four, buckwheat and other grains, spices, cooking oil and many other staples of a typically Ukrainian kitchen.

Ksenia’s Story

Hi, my name is Ksenia, I came to Canada in 2009 where I met my husband Dan and where we have grown our roots together, we are from very different parts of the world, but today both of our hearts belong to Ukraine.

I woke up on February 24th to news that I had never believed would become real. I noticed my Dan sitting next to me nervously, he looked at me with sadness in his eyes and told me he was sorry, but the invasion of Ukraine is now real, it started while we were asleep.

It was immediately heartbreaking, yet it still took me a few days to realize the magnitude of tragedy in Ukraine.

Once it all sunk in, I realized that I have to do something to help, and I have to start now. The first thing I could think of was to reach out to Ukrainians in Calgary and offer to host their relatives or friends who were fleeing the war if they did not have enough room to accommodate.  Unfortunately, at that time the Canadian Government had failed to act and had not yet lifted the Visa requirements, so many relatives of the Ukrainian community were not yet able to come.

Early in March I learned of an international website that was connecting people willing to offer their house to host refugees at no cost. I immediately registered on the site with our details. The number of responses, and the tragic stories from each family was instantly overwhelming. We can only accommodate one family at a time, how am I to choose? It felt impossible.

Eventually, I gathered myself and determined that we are best positioned to assist a young family of six, with four daughters between the ages and 2 and 12, that had reached out. They had fled from Irpin and made it to Berlin, upon learning that a shell had hit and destroyed their home after they fled, they began to focus on a plan for their new life. They will arrive in Calgary on April 8th, 2022.

Once we had agreed to take them in and host them until they can find a suitable place to live, I started collecting items for them as they are arriving with one suitcase and a few carry-on bags, literally all they could carry when they fled Ukraine.

I was quickly overwhelmed by the response from Russian-Ukrainian community with offers of donations of many gently used items. People are ready to part with couches, dishes, clothes, toys and many more items. The donations soon amounted to much more than the family might need, and through this process I am learning of families that have already arrived that are in need. With the large amount of donations, and the knowledge of arrival families, my next step is to facilitate the flow of material donations in our garage while and connecting the items with arriving families.

In addition to making the arrangements for our initial host family, I have been in constant contact with many other families, sharing my knowledge about Canada, about different resources they could use, looking for accommodations for them, helping with translating their documents, etc.

My goal is now clear, I intend to help as many families as I can to establish their new lives in Calgary, and other areas of Canada to the best of my abilities. The initial goal of this fund-raising effort, with the help of the Pinnacle 2020 Foundation, is to assist the arriving family with finding suitable and affordable accommodations and subsidise a portion of their first year of rent and to ensure they can still put food on the table and even put the girls into activities so they can start over and then find the next family as soon as possible to host and assist. The Pinnacle 2020 Foundation offers tax deductible receipts for donations of $50 or more and will continue to raise money for new families as the need remains high.

Here are some of the responses, at least the ones in English, that I received after offering our home. Names removed for privacy; the first response is from the initial family we will host.

My name is _____. I’m a citizen of Ukraine, my family (wife and 4 girls (12, 8, 5 and 2 years old) a month ago were forced to leave our home to seek a peaceful place to stay. I managed to rent an apartment in Berlin and apply for a Canadian visa. We are planning a trip to Canada (Calgary) on 8 april, tickets purchased. I found your accommodation at https://icanhelp.host I wonder if is it still actual? We just need a place to stay for a couple days/one week so I can find a permanent flat/house. Best regards, _____

Hello, is your offer to accommodate refugees from Ukraine still valid?  We are currently located in Warsaw, Poland.  We are 5 people, 2 adults and 3 children aged 12, 13 and 16.  On the 24th of February we received the news that a war had begun in Ukraine.  The next day, the parents decided to leave.  We stood on the border with Moldova for a whole day!  Then we went through Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and only then we got to Poland.

Hello, my name is _____, I am 42 years old. I found your offer on the site where you offered your help in accommodating Ukrainians who are fleeing the war. me and my son, he is 13 years old. submitted documents to the embassy and are waiting for a decision on the approval of the visa. could you take us for a while?

Good day! We are a large family from Ukraine. My name is _____, I am a primary school teacher. I am 32 years old. My husband’s name is _____, he is 37 years old. He works as a foreman for the installation of gas pipes. We do not know English well, but we have a great desire to learn! We are not afraid of different work. We have 2 sons, _____ is 7 years old and _____ is 5 years old and a daughter _____ is 2 years old. We really want to meet on our way a decent and good person (family) who will help us in a new place. Approximately we have to open a visa from April 7-12. Thank you for your attention!

Ksenia hi ! My name is _____, I have just read your announcement regarding accommodation in Canada. We are now in Ukraine. And only planning to receive the visa I would like to ask you where better to fly, to which city and what are the conditions that you offer? The thing is – I am going to come with my 3 years old daughter without my husband ( he is not allowed to exit cause of war)

Hi, We a family from 3 persons man _____ 32 y.o., Woman 30 y.o. and daughter 3,8 y.o.. My experience 12 years in Bank and Financial company. Wife work in pharmacy (like Bayer company). We looking for a place to live, work, kindergarten. Are you can some help for us? We are now in Germany.

Hi, I have found your contact on the icanhelp. host portal. My wife, our one year old son and myself left Ukraine due to the state of war. We are currently located in the Czech Republic, but desperately seeking for some ways to immigrate to Canada. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is currently working on some path to help Ukrainians in need to fast track immigration procedures. Are you still able to provide accommodation for Ukrainians? If so, will you allow us to stay at your place, or at least for my wife and our son? We are not smokers, you will not have any problems with us. I am 32, working professional in finance, IT and my wife is 28, civil engineer. We are much appreciated to you and other people for helping in such a difficult times. Regards, _____

Good day. My family is from Ukraine and we need your help in Calgary. If your housing offer is still relevant, please email me _____@gmail.com

Hello Ksenia. My name is _____. I found your contact on www.icanhelp.host.

We are family of 5 from Odesa, Ukraine. Myself, my wife, twin boys 5yo and daughter 3yo. We left our country three weeks ago and currently we are in Bulgaria. We consider to move to Alberta, Canada. Could you help us with accommodation till we find job and permanent housing? Thank you.

hello, my name is _____, my sister and I and my 3-year-old son are seeking refuge, I have a sphinx cat, we have nowhere to live, can we come to you?

My name is _____, I am 32 years old. Together with my mother and brother (16 years old), I left Ukraine and now we are doing the paperwork to move to Calgary. Wanted to know if your offer to host a family is still valid or if you have already found someone to stay with you?

Hello. My neme is _____. I am from Ukraine. I hope to travel to Canada from Ukraine. With me boys 8 and 15 years old. I saw your post on the I CAN HELP HOST website. You offer to take advantage of your hospitality. Me and my family will be happy to be safe. I don’t speak English, bat I have a very strong desire to learn English. We really want to live in your beautiful country

Hello Ksenia, My name is _____, I am 21 and I am a university student from Kyiv, Ukraine. My mom (she is a lawyer in Ukraine), my younger brother (he is 15 and he goes to school), and I have fled Ukraine because of the war and have found temporary shelter in Poland. We said goodbye to dad at the border and he stayed behind in Ukraine. The three of us have submitted applications for the special Visa program that the Canadian government has created for the Ukrainian people. We are very grateful for this opportunity but this is still a difficult decision to make during such a hard time. We don’t have any friends or family in Canada, who would be able to somehow support us while we figure out how to provide for ourselves without our dad.

I saw your post on the “I can help host” website and decided to check if you are still offering to host a family from Ukraine, and I was also wondering if you are hosting for free or maybe providing discounts for Ukrainians. We hope that our Visa application will be approved soon and we really want to come to Canada. We are afraid to move without having anywhere to stay at the beginning of our life in Canada and we would be very grateful if somebody could host us and help us to get used to Canadian life. Please let me know if you’re still willing to host a family. Kindest regards _____