The war in the Donbas has ruined many families brining deaths, divorces, destroyed houses, divided families and loneliness! Among dozens of calls and requests for help, there was one special and really touching call from a woman named Marina:

“Please, help us. We tried to cope on our own, but our boy has been really sick and no matter how much my husband tried to provide for us, we can’t help ourselves!”

The family of Ruslan and Marina Gradobryansky and their 9-year-old son Artem, were forced to leave their home town of Gorlivka in 2014.

Soon they brought their closest elderly relatives to live with them – 86 years Eudokia (Marina’s mother), 82-year old Antonina (Marina’s aunt) and 65-year-old Lydia (Ruslan’s mother).

“They are our family – my mother and her sister and my husband’s mom!  Our life together was not easy, but we were together and everyone was safe. We were squeezed but pleased”, Marina says warmly.

After a while, the family managed to buy an old one-bedroom house in the outskirts of Slavyansk, Donetsk region. Meanwhile, the elderly women had to return back to Gorlivka to let the young family finish the repairs as soon as possible. They did manage to finish one room, toilet and shower. The house has stove heating, but because of oven smoke Artem had health problems.

And this made the family to look for help – their most urgent need was to finish repairs and install a solid-fuel boiler to help the boy and bring the elderly ladies back.

“When they left, I had a terrible feeling of separation … I can’t sleep at nights. I keep thinking about my mother and how helpless she is… I feel like I have betrayed her… and can’t stop crying. My mother has had a serious surgery recently. She had a sarcoma and it was removed, she underwent a radiation treatment but other than that doctors couldn’t help her”.

“When we were younger, I used to ask my mother “Why did you decide to work at the mine? Not all men are capable of working there…. And she would answer, “I was very afraid of hunger … I was so afraid that it would return to my life!”  She survived one war and hunger, and now she has to go through this again. Only now she is old and helpless… How can I help her? I am her daughter, after all!”, Marina shares with tears running down her face.

Marina and Ruslan’s biggest dream now is to finish the repairs and bring the elderly women back to their house. Marina’s dream is to be able to care of these three elderly women. But she does need some help!

We can really change the life of this family!

78, 970 UAH ($2820) is the amount we need to raise to help the family finish the repairs inside, fix the roof and buy some basic furniture for the ladies. Even a small contribution matters!

The needed solid fuel boiler has been installed thanks to the financial support of “Pope for Ukraine” Initiative!

You can make your donation here to support this family.

Please, indicate  “the Gradobryansky family” in the comments.