Humanitarian Fund 22/03 :: Ukraine 19-03-22

At the end of 2021, we expanded our 15 years old “Research Fund” and created the Flying Sharks Humanitarian Fund. At the time we were (sadly) inspired by horrific images arriving from Iemen, where young babies were found with severe wounds on their fingertips… from gnawing at them in extreme hunger…

Most clients were quick to respond and started adding small sums to this fund as well, and we began searching for an ideal partner – such as UNICEF – to donate these funds to.

However, on the 24th of February we all woke up to deeply distressing news, as the Russian army invaded Ukraine. Millions of women and children rushed to flee the country, while the men stayed behind, defending their home from one of the most powerful war machines on the planet.

All of a sudden, Portugal was deeply moved by the plight affecting these millions of Ukrainian souls, and countless individuals and organizations began organizing transport of Ukrainian refugees to our sunny corner of Europe, away from all the madness, at least while the senseless bombing lasts.

It didn’t take long for Flying Sharks to realize that our trip to Stockholm was a perfect excuse to fly to Krakow after delivering six blacktip sharks, and that’s exactly what we did, after putting on our Loving the Planet shirt.

Once there, we rented a 9 seat van for six days, bought some groceries for the trip to Portugal, and drove to a refugee camp, where we picked up a family of 3 adult Ukrainian ladies (one of them 4 months pregnant), 1 young teenage lady, two young girls (4 and 5) and one 11 months old baby boy.

With 400 km driven from the airport to the camp in Przemysl, near the Ukrainian border, we then started our 3.600 km drive to Maceda, a small village in Ovar, north of Portugal, that welcomed our guests with open hearts, after preparing a home for them over the weekend.

The last segment of our adventure included returning the rental van to Krakow airport, which impressed the boys from Carwiz, who logged on the returning van with 7300 km in six days…

Below please find an itemized financial report for this trip, and we’ll take the time to thank the many donations we received from public aquaria and also private individuals, adding up to 2700 euros thus far.

• Meals for 2+2 drivers (round-trip) and 7 Ukrainian passengers: 428 euros

• Van rental: 1094 euros

• Fuel and tolls (round-trip of 7300 km): 2868 euros

• Total = 4390 euros

Needless to say that we haven’t forgotten about the Iemen children, and we are counting on your donations to keep supporting children from Ukraine, Iemen, and indeed the whole world.