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The centre was set up to provide support to Ukrainians suffering through the Russian invasion.

There was more than $5,000 in cash donated in the first two days the centre was up and running, and the building quickly filled with donated supplies from local businesses and individuals.

The centre is open 10 am to 11 pm daily to accept donations of supplies and cash, and donations can also be etransfered to [email protected]

Roman Chernykh and other members of the local Ukrainian community said it is important to take action here in Canada to support Ukraine.

“As members of this community and of course the people coming from Ukraine, it’s our home, it’s our home country,” Chernykh said.

“Ukraine is our home, it’s where our parents are from, where and our mothers and fathers are still living. We feel a strong connection to Ukraine and we feel that being outside and even far away from our home country, we can help them.

“We can help them by fundraising and by bringing more awareness to what’s actually happening from first-hand experience. Our mothers and sisters are out there right now.

“We feel the help is strongly needed right now, there’s 40 million people in the country and people have lost their homes. Some have lost close members of their family, they lost their jobs, their income and everything. So we feel that the rest of the world needs to stand up and help Ukraine because they’re fighting for their own freedom.

“Their freedom is our freedom too because they’re being a really good example to show the rest of the world what freedom actually costs, how people are fighting for their freedom. They’re losing half of their best people in their lives to get to their freedom, and losing great people, just to be free.”

Although Chernykh has been in contact with his mother who is living in Ukraine, he said it has been hard to maintain stable communication with her.

“It’s very hard to sustain a connection because every 30 minutes they have to jump into the bomb shelters. Right now, it’s just ‘hello, how are you doing, did you have food.’ The shops are closed right now, all the pharmacies, just everything.”

He spoke about the bomb shelters and underground metros that citizens are using for protection.

“People only have one route right now, from their homes to the bomb shelters, from the bomb shelters back to home, there’s no work, no school, there’s nothing. In big cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv, they have underground metros where people are hiding themselves in the metro just to survive at this point right now,” he said.

“This event brought something that no one has seen before, which is people helping each other more than ever. You see people carrying older women into the bomb shelters, just random people doing kind things for each other, just to help. You don’t see that happening anywhere else, it just tells me that we all have the other side of humanity and we express it only in a situation like this.”

Chernykh said because Ukraine’s population is huge, there are about 200 to 400 people crammed into one bomb shelter at a time. 

“Every highrise building has a bomb shelter built underground, every school has bomb shelters. The other day there were about 200 people in one bomb shelter. So, some people felt like they didn’t have enough air, they decided to go outside for some fresh air to breathe and they’ve been shot, 20 people dead and 15 wounded.

“These are things that are happening every day—it’s devastating, it’s definitely scary.”

Hearing about the catastrophe happening in Ukraine has directly affected Chernykh.

“It’s made me feel, up until today, somewhat helpless because all I can do is just talk with my mother and brother at this point. But how can I help them? You’re just so far away, there’s no way of bringing them over here, there’s no way to go there right now because it’s a no fly zone and the only way we can really communicate is through the internet,” said Chernykh.

“That’s why we gathered all together to decide how we want to structure our help. At this point we want to create help as soon as possible.” 

Chernykh said he is trying to spread the message to the community of how they can help, in order to support families and individuals in Ukraine right now.

“We plan to do a couple fundraising events in Moosomin and for the surrounding areas as well. We also want to have an information centre and a collective help centre here as well, which will happen as we go.”

Through fundraising and spreading awareness, Chernykh said he hopes individuals in the community become aware of what citizens in Ukraine are facing at this time.

“We’re hoping that we can bring the truth into the rest of the world—not scaring anyone, we don’t want to scare or create this image of burning houses—this is just what’s happening,” he said.

“We just want to bring to people a sense of understanding about what’s going on in Ukraine right now, to help people understand the meaning of freedom, what it is to be a free man.

“The first and most important thing is we are trying to do is get the finances if we can. That’s the main purpose. The second purpose is to prepare some humanitarian parcels to be sent to Ukraine.

“There are a couple of containers that are being collected in Regina and around Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan is so greatly involved helping the Ukraine right now. Knowing that the roots and the heritage of many Saskatchewan people come from Ukraine, we get lots of response and lots of help from Saskatchewan and around the world as well. 

“The most important is just to send the help as soon as we can because people need the help, people lost their houses, people lost their homes.”

He said he has been very worried about conditions back in Ukraine.

“We can’t even sleep at night. My wife and I take turns just watching the news. We are in constant connection with our families, but it’s pretty hard to keep that connection because every so often they have to run to the bomb shelters and they come back talking about how every 10 to 15 minutes they go back and they come back. It is impossible basically to imagine what’s going through our heads right now. It is really tough.”

He said if feels good to see the support from the community.

“It feels great because it means people are understanding what is going on. It just shows people supporting my country, people supporting my people, and that feels great. I can’t believe how much support there has been already.”