Cookies for Ukraine

Many grass roots efforts are taking shape to send aid to Ukraine. Ella and her family have organized a way to send Girl Scout cookies to Ukraine. Read the original story here.

Mar 18, 2022  •  Written by CALLI REMILLARD/ENTERPRISE

Efforts to offer humanitarian aid to Ukrainians during the Russian crisis have begun popping up all over Falmouth and the broader Cape Cod area as organizations, businesses, and individuals alike step up to do their part.

“It’s hard to just sit and watch it,” said Susan Johnson of Pondlet Place, Falmouth. “That energy is better put toward moving and doing something positive. It doesn’t take the situation away, but it helps.”

Ms. Johnson was inspired to take action earlier this month, citing her grandmother—who fled Europe in 1939 and helped save hundreds of Jewish children during World War II—as an inspiration.

“I sort of just follow in her footsteps,” Ms. Johnson said. “It’s part of my heritage, I like to assist with relief situations and missions.”

A few phone calls later, Ms. Johnson was put in touch with some other individuals and groups, including the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce and Ukrainian-born Dennis resident Yuliia Svieshnikova and her husband, who are organizing donation efforts. While Ms. Johnson and her neighbor, Jill Park, are just one notch in the chain of command, they have organized a donation dropoff point in Falmouth to aid the Capewide effort to collect items requested by the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce. Most of the requested items are either medical or baby supplies, including gauze, sterile wipes, a variety of bandages and wound dressings, high-dose over-the-counter pain medication, allergy medication, PPE, diapers, baby formula, baby food, and much more.

Those interested in making a donation are asked to do so before the deadline of Tuesday, March 22. Donations can be dropped off at 28 Pondlet Place in Falmouth. From there, donated items will be brought to Christ The King Church in Boston, shipped to special relief centers in Poland and then distributed from there.

So far, Ms. Johnson and Ms. Park have packed a number of boxes of medical supplies that are now ready to be brought to Boston and shipped.

“You’ll get a few naysayers, but those are just the few,” Ms. Johnson said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time you just get this outpouring of great energy and positivity and it’s just fantastic.”

The outpouring of support from the community has been great in various ways, something that was evident at Moto Pizza in Waquoit on Tuesday evening during its kickoff fundraising event for humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

The pizzeria was bustling during the event, which ran from 4 to 8 PM. The event was organized in conjunction with Waquoit Congregational Church, and 20 percent of the proceeds are being donated directly to relief efforts.

“My husband and I were sitting at home watching the news and feeling awful about everything and trying to figure out a way we can help,” said Jessica DelGrosso, one of the owners. “We know [the Reverend] Nell [Fields] and she’s been an amazing community builder, so we contacted her and came up with something that was a joint effort. It definitely brought in so many people.”

Moto Pizza is offering a limited-time Chicken Kyiv pizza, an ongoing special from which 20 percent of the proceeds will be donated. The kickoff fundraising event also featured a raffle for a basket of goodies, from which 100 percent of the proceeds were donated to relief efforts, and Girl Scout cookies sold by local 14-year-old Girl Scout Ella DiMeo.

Ella was the top Girl Scout cookie seller in Eastern Massachusetts last year, which was her first year selling. This year, in response to both “cookie fatigue” and the crisis in Ukraine, Ella and her mother, Laura DiMeo, wanted to come up with a new way for people to think about cookies.

The DiMeos themselves have some personal connections to the crisis: Ella’s self-employed father’s team of developers is based in Ukraine, and Ms. DiMeo has spent time working in Russia. After some research, Ms. DiMeo found a niche way for their family to help.

“I got a list of needs from Meest [a Ukrainian shipping company with offices in Boston], and on the list of needs was packaged cookies,” Ms. DiMeo said. “When I looked at it, I said, ‘Packaged cookies? Here we come.’”

Without a specific goal in mind, the DiMeos purchased a surplus of cookies, some of which came from other troops with leftover inventory, and is soliciting donations to help cover the cost of air-shipping the packaged cookies to Ukraine.

“We’re soliciting donations from the community and also from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts to sponsor a case, and if that’s too much, [to] help sponsor some of the shipping costs associated with it,” Ms. DiMeo said. “Basically what we’re trying to do is give people a new way to think about cookies and to think about them as donations. You don’t need to buy them for yourself. If you’re on a diet, if you don’t even like them, if you don’t even eat packaged cookies, there are other ways to support.”

While selling at Moto’s fundraiser event, the DiMeo's were able to find sponsors for seven cases of cookies. One case contains 12 boxes of cookies and costs $60 to sponsor. Shipping costs for one case is an additional $20, and individual boxes are $5. Sponsors are also invited to write a simple note to go along with the box, which will be translated into Ukrainian upon its arrival in Western Ukraine. From there, the boxes will be distributed to various aid agencies.

“It’s actually really simple,” Ms. DiMeo said. “I think everybody and their mother, to use the expression, is coming out of the woodwork to figure out how they can help… People might look at this and say ‘cookies? They need medical supplies. And to that, I would say, there are many people collecting medical supplies; this is not our area of expertise. We look to see what we can contribute with our tools and this is kind of what we came up with. Everyone can do their part.”

Weather permitting, Ms. DiMeo and her daughter Ella will be selling cookies in front of Homespun Garden in downtown Falmouth on Sunday, March 20, from noon to 3 PM. While supplies last, there will be cases available for sponsorship as well as individual packages of cookies, both for purchase and donation.

Ms. DiMeo said that they will be sending out multiple shipments of cookies, but asks that anyone interested in contributing do so by March 25. Those interested in either purchasing or sponsoring boxes of Girl Scout cookies are encouraged to reach out to Ms. DiMeo via email at ecookiestore@gmail.com or visit Ella’s website at www.ellasgirlscoutcookies.com/cookies4ukraine. Venmo donations are also accepted and can be sent to @Laura-DiMeo-1.

Additionally, the faith community is doing its part. On March 11, Cape Cod Church in East Falmouth hosted the Thrive Conference, a two-day event attended by 30 churches across Cape Cod. In addition to united worship services and breakout sessions about community issues, the conference also hosted Inna Taylor, a Ukrainian immigrant and local business owner.

Ms. Taylor, who owns Great Awakening Coffee House in Hyannis and served as a youth pastor in Dennis, led conference attendees in communal prayer for her homeland, where many of her family and friends still reside.

“I found it particularly moving when Inna paused to ‘pray for our enemies’ in Russia: a powerful application of Jesus’ famous teaching,” said Brittany Feldott, pastoral associate at Cape Cod Church.

In an email to the Enterprise, Ms. Feldott also said that the church community has donated $30,000 in support of humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement efforts in Ukraine.

“We financially support over 50 community and global partners year-round, which is made possible by regular gifts from our members,” she said. “In this case, we also supplemented that giving with targeted fundraising for Ukraine.”

Cape Cod Church has partnered with two American organizations with a prior presence in Ukraine—World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization headquartered in Baltimore that focuses on providing relief from disaster, poverty, and injustice; and Manna Worldwide, a nonprofit in Texas specializing in alleviating child hunger and poverty.

“Our ongoing partnerships enable us to meet the physical needs of our neighbors around the world, which we view as part of our spiritual responsibility,” Ms. Feldott said. “We know we can’t do everything, but we can do something—and that will mean everything to the person who receives it.”