Darrell McKay keeps a photograph of a 94-year-old woman in his office. He met her twice at a refugee centre in Ukraine, and he says she is burned into his head. She is one of the reasons the retired Campbell River engineer keeps going back.
We last spoke about this time a year ago, when Darrell was in Kyiv on his eighth volunteer trip, so I asked what had changed. Not much for the better. The war is about five years old, grocery stores are starting to show empty shelves, and people fear that Russia will go after heat and water this winter after hitting electricity and communications last year. Drones are cheap, defences get depleted, and dozens arrive at once. Trains are targets too, so when an air raid siren sounds, everyone gets off and clears the area.
His fundraising has grown from about $140,000 last year to roughly $220,000, and he says he will stop counting at $250,000. A friend in Nanaimo named Virginia has raised around $40,000 of it by selling household items on Marketplace. The money goes to Starlink units, medical gear, drone technology and computers, most of it bought in Ukraine. Cash, he told me, is king. Every dollar of profit from his book, My Time with Heroes, goes there as well. He has sold close to 750 copies and has a spot on the BC Ferries bookshelf in his sights.
Delivering Starlink Minis to a frontline command post, Darrell found himself in a dark room with big screens on the wall and a Canadian flag across from him. The commander asked him to write about what Russia is doing. Darrell is now about a quarter of the way through a second book, Dark: Volunteering and the Stories We Can’t Tell, interviewing those who have treated abused children and people who were held hostage.
In the middle of all this, he is getting married. He and Olga Buhai are eloping in Osoyoos, then flying to Italy for two weeks, then heading to Dnipro and Pavlograd to see her family before he goes to work. He has always said he had ten trips in him. This will be number nine.
A link to Darrell’s Facebook page is in the story notes for this episode at: https://bit.ly/S3EP03PulsePodcast
The PULSE Community website: ThePulseCommunity.ca.
Peter McCully is a multimedia creator and podcast host based in Parksville, BC. https://mccullymedia.ca/category/blog/