Local non-profit working to help Ukrainian refugees

HOUSTON - A local non-profit has been working nonstop since the Russian invasion in Ukraine, and from some volunteers, the mission is personal.

"It makes me really upset and angry at the same time because we don't deserve what is going on. It also makes me upset because people do not know why this is happening," said Anna Stephens who is from Ukraine and lives in Houston.  "I am worried about my parents all the time. At the same time, I can't force them to leave the country. My mom, she is a medical doctor, so she literally can’t leave."

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She says helping ship the aid through Project Cure has a deeper meaning to her.

"I am trying to support as much as I can, which is why I joined Project Cure because my mom is a medical doctor," she said. "What we are doing here, we are saving lives."

"Every day I am grateful that we are busy. You just keep going, and you do what you do, because when you stop it makes you sad," said Janet Thomason. 

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She is with the nonprofit, Project CURE. They have a warehouse in Houston. 

"We collect surplus supplies from hospitals and medical manufacturers, and then we bring it into our warehouses. Our volunteers inventory it, collect it and build this whole building full of supplies."

Since the war in Ukraine, they have sent 1,000 emergency relief beds and mattresses, more than 750 pallets of aid and 17 cargo shipments.

"My standpoint, as the director of procurement, the requests come to me when it is something we do have in the warehouse. I get requests. The saddest one so far, do you have special instruments for when children have crushed bones," said Thomason.

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Unfortunately the need hasn’t stopped, so the organization says they will keep going.

If you would like to find out how to help, click here.