Alaska2Ukraine!

Time for the "final" (?) Alaska2Ukraine GoFundMe update!

This campaign began about three months ago with a simple goal: raise $19,800 to pay off personal credit cards. More on that in a moment.

As of this time yesterday-ish, the campaign had received ~80 donations and had raised roughly ***$16,000 USD*** This is absolutely incredible and awesome and fantastic and I don't have enough words to describe it, and in short, you guys ROCK!!! <3 <3 <3

But wait, there's more! While the campaign took off like a JATO-assisted Chevy Nova in its first few weeks, it flattened out considerably around the time I got to Ukraine in June (most likely because I totally stopped doing anything to keep you guys updated and seek additional donors through this platform). But in the past 12 hours, the rockets are re-ignited! As of 23:00 // 11pm today {local time here in Mykolaiv}, we're suddenly up to 89 donations and ***$16,608 USD*** raised! (*sports announcer voice* -- "They! Could! Go! All! The! Waaaay!")

And in case this is reaching anybody who is absolutely new to the whole program, my apologies. Yes, I'm a bit, uh, unconventional, which is longhand for "nuts". But, no, this isn't a scam, or at least not in any traditional sense of the word. And please -- stick around! This project is really really cool and the people here are AWESOME!

Now let's recap a few things we did NOT do with those 89 donations and the $16,608 USD that real live people decided to contribute to this bizarre GoFundMe:

We did NOT set out to raise $10,400 USD to pay for the delivery of forty-two pallets of medical supplies from the UK to Ukraine. Nonetheless, forty-two pallets of medical supplies WERE funded and delivered (via BAT {Big Awesome Truck} from Suffolk England to the Polish/Ukrainian border, and then by van+van+van+etc to medical facilities all over Ukraine), and the receipts are in prior updates.

In addition we did NOT set out to raise an additional $9,400 USD to purchase and refurbish an ambulance from the UK for delivery to Ukrainian medics. Nonetheless, THREE ambulances WERE purchased in the UK and delivered into Ukraine -- one's already at the front, one has joined the magnificent "Vidnova+" team in Odesa, and I'm still driving one (but it too will be staying here when I head home to Nome, hopefully at the end of the month).

And finally, at this very moment, we are NOT fundraising here for what I estimate would be at least $6000 in equipment needed by a team of appallingly young and scarily efficient doctors, nurses, and medics who are risking their own lives, and saving lives on a daily basis, by staffing a far-forward field medical stabilization point in the Southern Military District of Ukraine.

(Authors note: a stabilization point/ "stabpunkt" is slightly analogous to a MASH unit, but most similar to a Forward Surgical Team, if you are familiar with US/NATO medical units.)

The fundraising which is NOT taking place here, would provide the medical team with the resources they need in order to give BLOOD and blood products to critically wounded patients during damage-control surgery. That capability alone would undoubtedly save lives. The team also needs and really ought to receive several additional equipment upgrades (operating tables instead of kitchen tables, operating lights instead of headlamps, etc etc) but the BLOOD would be the biggest one.

As a further reminder for anyone who might be interested, the reason we did NOT and do NOT do any of these things through GoFundMe is because GoFundMe is very appropriately concerned about scams and cons in the international fundraising space in general, and in Ukraine-themed fundraisers in particular. Therefore, in order to set up a fundraiser "for Ukraine" on the GoFundMe platform, it's necessary to provide so much information about one's Ukrainian partners that it makes the perennially paranoid really, really uneasy about where and how that information might wind up.

However! There are ZERO requirements for setting up a GoFundMe to pay off personal credit cards! (Or to go on vacation, buy a sports car, or ask every one of ten thousand strangers to buy you a Big Mac.) So, I set up this GoFundMe campaign up to pay off credit card balances! (And the credit card balances are all too real; there's nothing theoretical about THEM at all.)

I am 100% aware, if you've read this far, that you have considered or are considering donating YOUR money to this fundraiser. It's yours because you earned it, were given it, or just found it lying on the ground, but it is YOURS. It belongs to you, it represents any of an almost infinite number of things you could do with it to improve your own quality of life, and I am offering you NOTHING except the opportunity to pay off MY credit cards with YOUR money. There is absolutely no good reason for you to do this and if you have any doubts or concerns, you should NOT contribute. ("Run, do not walk, to the nearest exit," as I believe the sign says.)

But if despite all of these cautions you still want to press ahead --

All I can say is "Thank You." :-)

In Service,

--Mark Hayward