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Jeff Hartman, a Toledo native, and Matthew Morgan pose near two of their fleet of trucks before setting off on their first drive from the United Kingdom to the Poland/Ukraine border.
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Toledo man trucks aid to Ukrainian refugees

COURTESY HEIDI HAGEMAN

Toledo man trucks aid to Ukrainian refugees

In a time of crisis like the Ukrainian conflict with Russia, it takes drive to help those in need.   

Jeff Hartman, a Toledo native and graduate of St. John’s Jesuit High School who currently resides in the United Kingdom, has been taking this term literally. 

Over the last six weeks, Mr. Hartman has been filling trucks with medical and humanitarian supplies of all kinds and making the 20-plus hour, 1000-mile journey from his London home to the Ukraine/Poland border.

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“We have very late nights, and we don’t get a lot of sleep on the weekends,” Mr. Hartman said of the multiple-day journey he has been making weekly. “As tough as it is, it is hard to complain about it though, because there are a lot of people there who are running out of food and are freezing without gloves, so the minute we start thinking it is hard for us, we realize we need to do all we can to help our friends over there.” 

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These friends were, in fact, the impetus for Mr. Hartman’s journey, which really started when he was a volunteer with the Peace Corps from 2002 to 2004.

During his time in Ukraine, Mr. Hartman noted that the country had a lot of idiosyncrasies including the strong divide between the Russian-speaking east and the Ukrainian-speaking west, but he said the whole period was a formative experience in which he made many connections lasting to this day.

It was the connection to these friends that was the first thing that came to his mind when conflict broke out with Russia.

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“These people that I knew were all of a sudden in the army, their families were put in vulnerable positions, their cities were under attack, daily life was interrupted and the provisions that they had and relied on, things that you and I take for granted, they simply did not have,” Mr. Hartman said. “So I wanted to help as much as possible and I realized the best way to do that was to physically go there myself although I have relied on my friends a lot.”

Mr. Hartman said he started by buying trucks and gear and taking donations from friends and the Ukrainian diaspora around his home in London. At the Ukrainian border, he hands over the aid, such as canned food, coats and jackets, and first aid kits, to friends inside the war-torn nation who take the baton from there. 

As of April 22, Mr. Hartman has delivered 22 trucks over 6 weekends and plans to keep going as long as the need presents itself, sometimes taking as many as five trucks at a time. He said his initial goal was to raise just $10,000 for one truck and he was pleasantly surprised by how successful the initiative has been and how his friends provided so much support as soon as he told them what he was doing. 

“We are lucky that we have supportive wives and dogs that allow us to do this,” said Matthew Morgan, a Canadian-American expatriate in the United Kingdom, and friend of Mr. Hartman said.

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Mr. Morgan was instrumental in the formation of Ukrainian Action, the name of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit through which the group currently funnels its activities and donations and allows its donors to make tax-deductible donations.

Having been friends with Mr. Hartman for 15 years, Mr. Morgan was quick to throw his support to the cause. The two are avid ice hockey players and the pair were originally planning on traveling to Ukraine to play hockey with some of Mr. Hartman’s friends from his Peace Corps days when war broke out.

“Jeff is a very emotionally committed individual so I was happy to join him,” said Mr. Morgan, who has driven or helped on four of the six previous truck trips. “When there are disasters around the world, the best thing to do is to donate money, but we had the opportunity to do something more.”

For Mr. Morgan especially, it was the learning mechanisms along the 1000-mile trek that have really stuck with him, like where to position the truck fleet when driving on the Autobahn, and how best to communicate with his fellow drivers via walkie talkie during the drive.

These are lessons that the all-volunteer crew of Ukrainian Action hopes to take into the future as they look to the end of the Ukrainian conflict and beyond.

“The impact of the images you see and on the economy are huge and I think our efforts can transition to helping to rebuild and get these people’s lives back to where they were,” Mr. Morgan said. 

Already, Ukrainian Action has come across the opportunity to work to restore access to water in eastern Ukraine and that is the sort of thing they would like to continue. 

“Hopefully there will be a day in which we can stop driving trucks filled with diapers and food but there will be a continued refugee crisis,” Mr. Hartman said. “We envision in addition to shifting into things like basic utilities, clean water, and generators, our plan is to work with refugees on resettlement either within Ukraine, in Poland, or possibly in England.” 

Through spreading the word about these goals and the work he has already done, Mr. Hartman’s network has grown bigger and bigger and he is hoping to continue to build relationships with new people and organizations in the months to come.  

“I’ve heard from people that I haven’t spoken to in years,” Mr. Hartman said. “I hope that I can give them a channel they didn’t otherwise know they had to support Ukraine, which seems very far away because really, Ukrainian Action is about friends helping each other.” 

Those interested in donating to Ukrainian Action can visit ukrainianaction.com or find Ukrainian Action on Facebook or Instagram @ukrainianaction.

First Published April 24, 2022, 6:00 p.m.

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Jeff Hartman, a Toledo native, and Matthew Morgan pose near two of their fleet of trucks before setting off on their first drive from the United Kingdom to the Poland/Ukraine border.  (COURTESY HEIDI HAGEMAN)
COURTESY HEIDI HAGEMAN
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