Retired Minnesota pastor gathers new flock to send relief to Ukrainians in need
ISANTI, Minn. — As the war continues in Ukraine, a group of volunteers near the town of Isanti are doing their part to help displaced civilians thousands of miles away.
Every Monday morning, in a warehouse just outside of town, about 25 volunteers gather to pack food, clothing, medical supplies and even fire protection equipment.
"How do you help? This is the avenue, right here. We should all help one another, love one another," volunteer coordinator Sherry Herdina said.
All the supplies were donated to Hand in Hand Logistics, who will ship them to Ukraine. Lee Schuemann built the warehouse on his farm, to make it all possible.
"I've been going there since 1997. And it started at the time I was a pastor at an Evangelical church in the area," said Schuemann.
During his trips, Scheumann made friends with Ukrainians and actually began sending them supplies 15 years ago. Then when the war broke out, he escalated his efforts. The fire equipment in particular, helps Ukrainians after bombing raids.
"There's a lot of surplus stuff. You've got 120 departments or so around the state, or more than that, and some of the stuff we get is barely used," said Scheumann.
This will be their 25th shipment since May 2022, and each one contains about two dozen pallets consisting of half a million dollars worth of supplies. That includes food from Life Rice, another local nonprofit.
"It's a high-nutrition meal, it's easy to prepare, you boil it just like rice," Life Rice's Jeff Boyum said.
Now, Hand in Hand Logistics is getting help from families who fled the war for Minnesota.
"This is really amazing because the feeling in Ukraine is that we aren't alone," Dima Negerebenko said.
Negerebenko helps with the shipments. While his family gets used to life here, he's still thinking about his friends back home.
"This is really a big struggle and some people lose some relatives, husbands," Negerebenko said.
"I thought this was going to be a one-off. We send one and we are done. Well, we are 24 into this now," Scheumann said. "It's a personal thing for me."
Volunteers are all ages and come from different parts of the state to pack supplies on Mondays.
