'We're All In This Together': Retired Denver Cop Helping Feed Ukraine Refugees

DENVER (CBS4)- Snow White, 67, a retired Denver police officer, is now spending her days cutting up carrots and making sandwiches and stews for thousands of refugees from Ukraine.

"It's been very eye-opening, it's been very humbling," she said, after finishing another 11-hour day making meals for refugees from Ukraine who have crossed the border into Poland.

"What I'm doing is representing Denver, Colorado and I'm here for all of Denver to say we are fighting this."

White, who retired from DPD in 2018 after serving for 28 years, said she had been looking for ways to help Ukrainians when she read a blog by a volunteer for World Central Kitchen, a frontline aid organization that has served millions of meals to those displaced by the Russian invasion.

"That is something I can do," she thought. "If everybody could do it, they would. But they can't, they have work or have family."

White said she had few ties holding her back and on April 2, she boarded a plane and landed in Poland on April 3.

She went to work with the organization and was assigned to a warehouse in Przemysl, Poland, right on the border with Ukraine. She goes to work every morning assembling meals for refugees. She said it's a well-organized relief effort, sometimes making 1,200 sandwiches an hour.

"You individually package every sandwich, cut up apples for applesauce, package cups of applesauce."

She says it is "humbling to do this work but I am thankful to be able to make a difference. I feel horrible for them(refugees from Ukraine)."

Although she does not speak the language, White says she has been impressed by the resiliency of the refugees.

"Being here, you can't even grasp what these people have gone through and the resiliency they have. They just keep pushing right through. They're not angry, they're not throwing a fit."

White initially planned to volunteer for two weeks but has now decided to stay on until at least June.

"You're doing something other than sitting at home wishing you could do something," she said.