Tikkun Olam in Action

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Chase Ben-Ezra, Luke Linovitz, Reid Linovitz and Zach Homer

Zach Homer, Chase Ben-Ezra and Luke Linovitz

Tikkun Olam in Action

Local teens collect supplies for Ukraine.

KAREN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

In response to the crisis in Ukraine, Zach Homer, 16, of Birmingham, and his friends made volunteering their first priority. Even with busy school and sports schedules, he, along with Chase Ben-Ezra, 16, and Luke Linovitz, 15, set aside time to collect items to support those impacted by the ongoing fighting. Together with Ben-Ezra’s father, Steven, they took a U-Haul filled with donated goods to a warehouse in Hamtramck, where volunteers are organizing the items into paletts and shipping containers to be sent out.

“We just wanted to give back as much as we possibly could because that’s the most we could possibly do,” Homer says. Word traveled quickly that the boys were holding a fundraiser. They posted on social media, and soon had donations piling up from people they knew and also people they’d never met. “We’d have hundreds of packages on our porch,” Homer explains. Within a week, they’d unboxed everything and sorted it out for delivery.

His family’s got a personal connection to the Ukraine as well, through their housekeeper, Iryna, who has been with the family for more than a decade. “She’s part of our family,” he says. “She has lots of family fighting and doing everything they can to hold their ground and, most importantly, stay alive. So we wanted to give back to her as much as possible.”

Homer says he’s impressed by the number of people who donated to their cause. “I think the most important part was gathering as much stuff as possible to help out as much as possible and give people as many resources as they need,” he says. “Stuff’s not supposed to get that bad, and it did.”

Warehouse Operations Lead Oleksandr “Sasha” Tkachenko, who represents the Ukrainian-American Crisis Response Committee, says he was impressed when the teens showed up. “It’s something we really like to see, that somebody in the younger age is helping. It’s really important to us.” Seeing younger volunteers makes him smile, he adds, something he hasn’t done a lot since the conflict started. “It’s bringing a smile back to my face,” he says. “They are helping, and it’s great.”

Tkachenko’s group, which operates out of a donated warehouse, has already shipped five containers and sent 28 pallets by air. They started out accepting clothes and medical items but shifted their focus to building first aid packages. They also continue shipping diapers and hygiene products like toothpaste. “Those kids, I remember them specifically