The very short summary: during my stay in Poland we've purchased two 9-seat minibuses and organized maintenance for them (probably we have to pay only for the parts), we have helped a bit with logistics, moving 2000 sleeping bags plus some few flashlights and sleeping mattresses around internally in Poland, given 10 persons a lift from the border to Lublin, organized short-term overnight stay for all of them and followed up some of them.
Prior to the trip I had collected 79 kNOK for humanitarian aid, the main purpose was to buy a 20-seat minibus to increase the bandwidth for an Ukrainian driver that was working with picking up passengers from a town a bit west of Kyiv. The situation on the ground changes quite fast, before we could buy the bus there was already no need for it - there were simply not enough people to evacuate from that point (then again, things can change very fast if the Russian will start bombing/shelling/"liberating" more areas in their military campaign - that could trigger a new wave of refugees). Said driver found funding somewhere else to buy a 4WD vehicle to be able to help closer to the frontline. Since I'm not even sure if said vehicle is to be used for humanitarian aid or for military aid (and since some of the donors specifically told their contribution was strictly for humanitarian aid and not military aid), I did not contribute to that. We purchased two cheap caravelles instead, they are currently undergoing maintenance. The cheapest caravelle cannot be legally driven in Poland without quite big extra costs, and it also feels more like a transport for prisoners than a transport for refugees, so it will be donated to the Ukrainian army and sent to the front line (at least my part of the contribution can be utilized for such purposes). The other caravelle will first be used for transporting refugees internally in Poland (mostly from the refugee reception points at the border), and later donated to some organization in Lviv. I will post the current accounting figures in a follow-up post. We've still spent less than half of the funds.
Photo is of a cultural centre in Lublin, some of the relief effort is coordinated from there
With regards of the sleeping bag logistics, rent for the van has been taken from "my" budget, fuel costs have been paid for by another organization. I've been questioning the value of this work - for one thing the sleeping bags aren't really suitable for winter usage (and the night time temperatures are rather low, even if spring is coming), for the other thing it would be a lot easier for a big truck to drive the sleeping bags directly to the points where they are needed in Ukraine. JJ tells the work is very important, there is a quite big demand for the sleeping bags, and as most of them are transported into Ukraine by smaller cars, or as just as a small part of a bigger shipment in a bigger truck, our redistribution work is useful. We were even requested to pick up more sleeping bags and would have done so yesterday if the van would have been available.
While things may change any time, the refugees aren't flooding into Poland anymore. Currently it seems to be enough resources available both inside Ukraina and in Poland to handle the flow (with the exception of places close to the front line - particularly the people in Mariupol despearately needs help, but that's quite outside what we can help with). For anyone wanting to contribute now, I think the most important is to open the doors for the Ukrainians and give them accommodation.
JJ is quite broke at the moment, instead of trying to earn money he's working full-time as a volunteer, together with Karol and quite some other people in Lublin. I first thought that food should be considered a private cost, but I'm reconsidering that a bit and will allow for some funds to be spent on food costs for volunteers while doing volunteer work - but no expensive restaurant trips nor alcohol.
Does any of this effort help saving any lives or prevent serious suffering? I'm afraid to say - most likely not. The efforts now are more towards making life easier and more comfortable for people that are under a lot of stress. There are many poor people in Poland, does the average Ukrainian - some of them probably quite well off - deserve to be treated that much better than the poorest people in Poland? Yes, I think so. In particular I think it's important to stretch out a hand to the mothers crossing the border with children, to make them able to care properly for the children. As said, what made the biggest impression on me was from the quite so chaotic refugee reception point - a child that was crying while sitting on the lap of his mother, but the mother was totally unable to comfort the child as she was weeping herself.
It is somehow a paradox that Poland, a country meeting refugees from other parts of the world with a rather cold shoulder (as we've seen particularly with refugees trying to enter Poland through Belorussia) are behaving so welcoming towards the Ukrainians.
I think and hope that there is a probability that the war will be over soon. Then it's needed with lots of resources to rebuild Ukraine, and it will also be needed with transportation help to get returning refugees back home.