The CommunityWorx Story
This vital day to day assistance in the form of practical care packages of food, clothing and other items like nappies and bed clothing is at the core of the day to day operation. Families simply text ahead for collection after contacting the team online or by phone to explain their situation.
Many shipments of goods and medical supplies were also arranged through the network and sent directly to locations in Ukraine where they provided emergency relief to those who needed it most on the other side of the border.
Aside from all of this Oleksii, Maryia and their core team helped people fleeing the war find shelter, childcare and access to healthcare and other government services by leveraging their ever-growing network of contacts all while constantly scrambling to find enough money for the next delivery of goods. That has been the day to day of Oleksii, Maryia and the rest of our tireless volunteers since February.
Dave & Jacek
Parallel to this when the war started Dave and Jacek had already being working on a social space project together. Both felt that what the community needed more than anything was help, so they paused their other projects to create the foundation and get to work.
Dave had opened a gofundme campaign in the early days of war that raised
over €30,000 - the money raised paid for the rent, heat, gas of an
emergency shelter in the city run by the Sekta community for 3 months,
as well as funding several apartments for families to stay in short
term. It soon became clear that the problems would be much longer
lasting than this emergency aid.
A Future-Proof Foundation
Dave, Jacek and original members Katia, Micha and David set about
establishing a foundation that could provide long term help to people
arriving in the city. Jacek was instrumental in navigating the legal
requirements to set up a foundation in the city, he worked tirelessly
with the courts and fought for the organization to be recognized as a
charity in a short space of time.
Although a long and laborious task, it was felt in order to have a
foundation that could outlast the immediate crisis things had to be done in a perfectly transparent fashion and so Community Worx was founded. Its core goal, to give independence back to those who had been forced to flee their homes due to war.
The puzzle pieces are put together
During this time Maryia and Oleksii were introduced to the Community Worx crew by Katia. The original warehouse space had been taken back by the owner and the whole operation was in jeopardy. By joining forces with Dave and Jacek, the team of four set about finding a new premises. Within a couple of days they managed to negotiate a new lease for a
warehouse space at Przykopy 5, which is now Community Worx HQ.