Do you remember that the Little Bus, which helps volunteers, lives in our organization?
Together with his brother the Big Bus, he came all the way from distant Denmark from our friends KFUM og KFUK i Distrikt Aarhus to help Ukrainians in difficult times.
The Little Bus is smaller but more agile and loves to communicate more. He travels around Lviv from warehouse to warehouse and collects necessary things for soldiers and people in the occupied territories: camouflage nets, tools, medicine, diapers for children… Also, the Little Bus drives our team and singers to other countries or can drive them to the border for drones.
The Big Bus is strong, he likes long trips around Ukraine and small companies. He doesn’t tell anyone about it, but he really likes to see how adults and children rejoice when he brings them gifts.
Our Buses started preparing for the volunteer summer back in May.
The Little Bus helped at the “Bird” charity concert of the poet and singer Serhiy Zhadan. After that, he constantly turns on the songs of “Zhadan and the Dogs” in the salon. In addition, the Little Bus took our singers to the Romanian city of Baia Mare, where YMCA Romania invited us to talk about the Opera-Myth “Ukraine – Terra Incognita”. And although he is from Denmark, Ukrainian songs were very close to his heart, that is, to his motor.
The Big Bus went to Zaporizhzhia. He brought food and clothes to the displaced persons from the occupied territories and also stopped by to visit our soldiers with various gifts and a lot of goodies. The Big Bus, although serious, does not go on any journey without sweets. Also, the Big Bus helped the engineers carry the turrets on the military training ground.
At the beginning of June, the enemies blew up the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and flooded villages in the Kherson region. So our fellows rushed to collect the most necessary: medicine, food, water purification tablets, mattresses, bedding…. And in a few days, the Big Bus brought humanitarian aid for civilians and military to the Kherson region: to Kherson, Komysany, Zelenivka…
In July, the Big Bus went on monitoring visits to Kropyvnytskyi and Kompaniivka. These visits are made by YMCA Lviv with the support of UN Women Ukraine in order to know the needs of people who have been affected by the war. At the same time, the Big Bus drove to the 116th Independent Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces to hand over various gifts to the tankers, repair battalion and infantrymen: trench candles, camouflage nets, a welding machine, spare parts and car wheels.
The Little Bus took our team to Warsaw to get visas to the USA, because they wanted to learn about the Opera-Myth at the YMCA of the USA convention in Atlanta, Detroit and Austin. Furthermore, the Little Bus discovered sports and helped at a charity football tournament.
In August, our volunteers handed over a pickup truck for soldiers to evacuate the wounded. The Little Bus went to show him the way. In Kryvyi Rih, they almost came under fire from enemy rockets, but it did not scare them. They then drove almost to the very front line and brought many useful things to the military and also a Cossack saber. Because we are protected by the same Cossacks, although in the modern world.
Also, our Buses saw the Carpathians for the first time. YMCA Lviv, as part of the #FemaleVolunteersofLviv project, held a Summer School, to which the Big Bus brought supplies, food (and even the world’s sweetest Kherson watermelons), and female volunteers.
At the end of August, the Little Bus helped carry the installation to the “Thoughts on Peace” event, which our volunteers and singers from “Circles of Paradise” did in Metropolitan Gardens.
The Little Bus and his brother the Big Bus did not waste the summer. We hope you did not too.
