Milners lead Rotary effort to aid Ukraine

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Morganton and Marion Rotary Clubs formally partnered with two Ukrainian Rotary Clubs and the Wheelchair Foundation to ship 260 wheelchairs to Ukraine for victims of the war-torn region.

Karen and George Milner, members of the Rotary Club of Morganton, recently traveled to Ukraine with their daughter, Christy Irons of Greenwood, S.C., to coordinate the shipment of the wheelchairs and other medical supplies.

Irons adopted four Ukrainian children with disabilities in the period from 2014 and 2018. 

“The world gets smaller and the ability to find and communicate needs anywhere in the world demands our attention,” Milner said, “and Rotary allows that to happen seamlessly, even from small towns in western N.C.” 

Shortly after the Milner family arrived in Ukraine in late September, Milner said, “I’m standing in a Ukrainian warehouse with my wife and daughter where two people were killed last month by a Russian rocket… I’m wondering, ‘How the hell did I get here with my family?’”  

He got there because daughter Christy, one of four daughters (not counting the more than 50 children the Milners have fostered over several decades), adopted four special-needs children from Ukraine. 

Ukraine is close to the family’s heart. They wanted to help bring relief to the residents of the country. The Rotary project enabled the effort.

Christy kept a diary of sorts during their two-week sojourn. This is her story. It has been edited for space and clarity.

 September 29, 2023

It all began as a slightly normal idea. Adoption. My sister and I flew into Ukraine Feb. 4, 2014, to meet a little boy who would become a son, brother, and grandson. All we knew was that he had Down syndrome and was losing weight, a scary thing for a 19-pound, 4-year-old.

We also knew that Ukraine had violently erupted into revolution, now called The Revolution of Dignity, shortly before we got there in 2014. There were shootings, fires, and fighting between Ukrainian separatists and Russian loyalists. I had no idea what we were getting into and how this country would shape my family and my life. Initially it was terrifying, but, somehow, Ukraine and her people warmly weaved their way into my worldview.

On the one hand, I hated Ukraine for almost killing my boys —  their disabilities rendering them “incapacitated” by the government. Abandoned at birth, they were given minimal care, their bodies and minds still telling the tale of neglect and abuse. Hate seems a natural response to the treatment that my boys received. 

 On the other hand, Ukraine has given me her children and I love her dearly for it. Ukraine has filled my home with little lives that are challenging, hilarious, and wholly lovely. She has given me a love for Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian food. She has instilled in me a deep drive for sustainable, equitable, healthcare, education, and deinstitutionalization. 

I used to think I could not love and hate one place so much. But I can. And I do.

So here I sit, going back to the place that holds intense sorrow and overwhelming joy. Ukraine.

We spent the week in late September meeting new friends, seeing old friends, and attempting to understand any needs that we can meet in the coming months. 

We packed in over 300 pounds of medical supplies urgently needed.

September 30, 2023 
Lviv, Ukraine via Polish Border

I have been messaging with the wonderful and amazing Iryna, who helped us adopt Atticus in 2018. My debt to her can never be repaid. If you ask her, she sincerely says I owe her nothing. 

Her husband, Slava, was our driver, then and now. His English is comparable to my Ukrainian. And my Ukrainian is questionable at best. Our communication involved miming, pointing, and laughing. He is a Ukrainian patriot, fiercely loyal, fiercely kind, and fiercely brave. This couple could only be described as bold and fearless even before the war began.

 This week, Slava was in Lviv, a six-plus-hour drive from his hometown of Bucha, to get parts for a military vehicle he is fixing for the troops fighting in Bakhmut. Because he was in Lviv and I was in Lviv, he ran by the hotel, clogged up traffic by parking in the middle of the road and picked up the medical supplies that we brought with us on this trip. 

These pounds of supplies were gathered and donated by humans who dared to attend to the hurts of their neighbor. And I love that. Pain that is shared seems to sting slightly less. The stakes are high in war, and small kindnesses spread hope, a precious commodity for all of us.

October 1-2, 2023

While in Lviv, we met with Diana. She is a member of Lviv Rotary Club, a linguist, and an excellent historian of Ukraine. 

She connected us to Borys. Borys is an interesting bloke, a UK national with Ukrainian parents. He returned to his roots as a retired banker and now, in conjunction with his Rotary Club, collects and distributes humanitarian aid. This is why we are here. To find ways to help that are truly helpful. 

It can be easy to decide what we think is helpful in our safe homes, in our safe towns, and entirely miss what would best serve people in crisis. Asking what is needed, learning as we go, and being willing to adjust has remained important on this journey. 

Borys has a warehouse available to him through another Rotarian that will be able to house 280 wheelchairs that are being sent in through The Wheelchair Foundation and Rotary Clubs of Marion and Morganton. 

After meeting with Borys, we went to Mars Field. It has been a soldiers’ burial ground for Austrian soldiers and allies who were killed during the First World War. Years later, Soviets destroyed the area and tilled 5,000 souls that were already buried there into soil and began burying their dead on top of the dead. 

After this travesty, Mars Field was then turned into a memorial with names of the identified dead listed morbidly down the field engraved in dark, cold granite. This field has a long history of immense sadness that continues to present day. Mars Field is now overflow burial space for the Lviv men and women that have died in this war as the Lychakiv Cemetery, the cemetery for Lviv Oblast, is completely full.

Upon approaching Mars Field, we see a funeral. Funerals happen every day, multiple times a day, making avoiding a funeral almost impossible. Walking down the rows of graves, there were many people visiting their newly gone loved ones. I could hear cries, see tears. There is no remedy for this loss and no clear end to the horror.

 Our next destination was Kyiv, much closer to the front lines and hit daily by Russian missiles.  

Traveling to Kyiv is a calculated risk. I cannot say I have no anxieties traveling closer to the war and traveling to cities that have recently had missile attacks. I also know that I have lovely children that will need care for a long time. 

Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine. I have seen it in 2014 covered in barricades and citizen soldiers, ablaze with fires set by its own people in protest of a corrupt government. 

Then again in 2015, bustling with new life, new government, and zeal I have only seen in the faces of Ukrainians committed to true democracy and a life of freedom at any cost. 

In 2018, Kyiv seemed to be settling into its new norm with a few bumps but with steady eyes to remain free.

Then, on February 24, 2022, I sat in the living room watching in disbelief as my children’s home country, which holds people that we know and love, was bombed again and again. Media flocked to the story, faces of little grannies hobbling across remnants of buildings and bridges to escape Kyiv, moms crying, and children dead splashed across the screen. 

War analysts speculated that Ukraine would fall in mere days. A small country, young by any standard, could not and would not stand up to the giant at the eastern border. But they did. And continue to. Fueled by their own personal resolve to not be slaves to Russian rule. 

In Kyiv, damaged buildings are constantly being repaired with new structures being built to house the displaced. People walk around Maidan, restaurants are open. Locals walk past rubbled, bombed homes and do not flinch. 

Surprisingly, the landscape looks less dramatic than in 2014 when Maidan was ground zero for revolutionaries and barricades, but the death and fear remain.

While in the capital, Iryna and Slava picked me up from the hotel and we went to Bucha and Irpin. 

There is something that feels irreverent about going to a country at war and not driving the hour to share ground with the heroes that stood in front of tanks, hands raised, with no weapons, and refused to move. It is the village where mothers and children were gunned down in the street, houses were set afire, and Russian tanks indiscriminately battered, shot, and ran over entire residential neighborhoods. 

Bucha was a town caught in the crosshairs of Russian lies and Russian firepower and paid for it with precious Ukrainian lives.

 The Ukrainians I spoke to have plans now. They are prepared. They will not be caught unaware. They have taken Molotov-cocktail-making lessons, they have organized citizen armies, they have barricaded the entrances to their own villages, and they clearly understand another attack could very well mean their death. 

“I will not be under siege again, I will fight, not hide. Maybe they [Russian military] will kill me, but I will not live like that again.” This sentiment echoed over and over. I have never had to hate war with my life – it is the privilege of living in a country that is wealthy, has a large military, and does not have bullies for neighbors. 

Ukraine, you have had the eyes of the world on you and talking media heads predicting your demise. To this you have definitely thrown up the proverbial middle finger, and I love you for it. My prayer for you is peace within an independent, free, and victorious country. You are appropriately like the Ukrainian children that I call mine – stubborn beyond belief, joyful, kind, and determined to do what we all want for ourselves – to live and live free. 

May we all join in the desperate war cry of the Ukrainian people: 

 Слава Україні (Glory to Ukraine).

Glory to Ukraine, indeed.