Montrealers drop off supplies in Dorval bound for Ukraine

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Francene Elle was at home in Saint-Lazare watching the television news last Wednesday when she learned that a Russian airstrike had devastated a maternity and children’s hospital in the port city of Mariupol.

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Children were trapped under the rubble and three people died.

‘Oh my God,’ she thought. ‘These people need help.’

Elle was galvanized to act.

She called Ron Edwards, owner of Duffy’s, a pub in Dorval, and asked if she could use the bar Sunday afternoon as a dropoff point for crucially needed supplies headed for Ukraine, including bottled water, diapers, baby formula, knee and elbow pads, personal protective equipment, bandages, flashlights with batteries, antiseptic cream, acetaminophen, wound dressings, disinfectant wipes, energy bars and other dry food, dry pet food, toiletries, coloring books and crayons. I have agreed.

Elle made posters and the news of the event spread quickly through social media. She said she chose the Dorval location for the dropoff because it is central — and because she wanted to support Duffy’s, which, like other bars, was affected by pandemic closures.

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The supplies are intended for Ukrainians forced into underground shelters — people who are afraid and have been separated from loved ones who have gone off to fight for their country, she said. Russian forces invaded Ukraine Feb. 24 as part of an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine that began eight years ago.

“They are in urgent need of life basics to get through as best they can,” Elle said. “This is a heartbreaking situation.”

She said she was confident that Montrealers would step up — and they have.

“People have come from all over — from as far away as Laval and Valleyfield,” she said on Sunday afternoon.

“I am overwhelmed by people’s generosity. It’s phenomenal.

“I just can’t believe it. The people of Montreal are incredible.

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“People have been bringing huge quantities: cases and cases of water and cases and cases of diapers,” she said shortly before 4 pm “I have a team of six volunteers, sorting and boxing, and we have a big truck being loaded.

“What I have said to everybody today is, ‘Tonight you can go to bed and rest, knowing you have helped.’ ”

The supplies Montrealers delivered to Duffy’s on Sunday were to be transported to St-Michael’s the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church in Montreal’s east end. They will be loaded onto a plane bound for Poland — the flight is being sponsored by Meest, a freight-delivery service specializing in shipping goods to Eastern European countries — and then transported overland into Ukraine.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine,” Elle said.

For her, it’s about helping and doing the right thing — and it’s also personal.

Her paternal grandfather left Kyiv in 1917, at the start of the Russian Revolution. “And so a little piece of my heart is in the Ukraine,” she said.

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