It’s been just under 10 months since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, and it is now the first holiday season since the war began. One local man is spending his Christmas in Ukraine bringing supplies to families and gifts to children.
Boyd Byelich started the group called One Box for Ukraine in the summer and has made numerous trips to the war stricken country to drop of donations.
“We have been sending over many many boxes of humanitarian aid, especially toys. And now we’re going to deliver those toys into Ukraine,” Byelich says.
He says he made his first trip to Ukraine back in May. And now for his third trip he wanted to something special.
“We just knew they had gone many months with literally nothing, especially the children. And so the thinking was early on, ‘lets do everything we can to give as many kids as we can some taste of what Christmas should look like,'” Byelich states.
So he gathered donations back home in Northern Michigan and is spending Christmas dropping off gifts to children.
“Many people from Northern Michigan have donated not only toys, but money. We’ll take them in and distribute them to the more harder hit areas and places no else is getting to. We’ll get toys to as many kids as we can,” Byelich explains.
He says he knows it’s not much in the grand scheme, but says he hopes he can make some kids holiday a little brighter.
“And what it does is, for a couple hours, [the kids will] forget about what’s going on and make a huge difference in their life,” Byelich says.
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