Day 1 – A Smile and Hello can Make All the Difference... and sometimes a mustache too
501 Collective in Romania & Ukraine
Sometimes a smile, hello, and a mustache can make all the difference.
Alec and I (John) were the first two to arrive in Bucharest. I met Alex at arrivals and we made our way to our Gate downstairs. We found a corner table at the café. Alex, rocking a fresh thick mustache spotted another thick mustache wearing guy walking by and said, “Hey, where you from?”
“Wisconsin. The stach sold me, right?”
“Haha, yes. I’m from Idaho.”
Two men from the World Orphan Fund had come to Suceava, Romania to travel through Romania, Ukraine, and Poland looking for orphanages to support and fund.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to our team, the Refugee Center we were headed to work at, Fight For Freedom, had just turned from housing refugees with plans for housing ex-prisoners… into housing for special needs orphans from Ukraine.
Through contacts in Ukraine, the Ukraine government asked if they could use the center. They sent 75 children ages 0-5 to the center.
Meanwhile, the Russian government has been trying to take the orphanages from Ukraine and move them to Siberia to repopulate the area.
Due to the great facilities and care of Fight For Freedom, the Ukrainian government has now asked if they can bring two more orphanages there.
The capacity is already maxed out.
But they are looking at local hotels and other potential landing spots for the children. Which is where the mustache and hello come back in to play.
The next morning, at 5:30am, only 7 hours after the initial greeting at the airport gate, the World Orphan Fund showed up at our place to discuss how we could best work together to care for the orphans of Ukraine.
Of note:
*There are no orphanages in Romania. Orphans are only sent directly to homes.
*Due to the relationships established, the Ukrainian Government did move 75 orphans to Fight For Freedom with the hope of bringing 110 more
*Russia has already take tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and re-populated them