Project Ollie Brings Supplies to Students in a Place Weary of War
- projectollie
- 18 hours ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 12 minutes ago
By Jing Li
Peace Corps Ukraine Volunteer
Shevchenkove, Kharkiv region, 2010-2012
When I remember the happiness and energy of the life and students I knew in Ukraine, the reality of life today feels distorted–like looking at the world through shattered glass. Here’s a peek into that reality – and how Project Ollie, with your help, is trying to help.
After World War II, Kupiansk Vuzlovyi grew into a lovely town in eastern Ukraine, situated on the left bank of the River Oskil. By 2020 or so, the town had grown to include more than 15,000 people. There was one main school that welcomed more than a thousand local children from kindergarten through 11th grade. Prior to the war, Kupiansk Vuzlovyi was a bustling town with all the necessary infrastructure: a train station, bus station, gas stations, shopping markets, coffee shops, convenience stores, bars and more. Those transportation routes connected Kupiansk Vuzlovyi to many places, including Kharkiv to the northwest and Russia to the East. The geographical position of the town is extremely important, making it a strategic transportation node for many vital purposes in Ukraine.
The exact distance between Kupiansk Vuzlovyi and Shevchenkove is 50 kilometers, which was a short 40 minute ride by bus.
More than ten years ago, when I was serving in Ukraine in the Peace Corps as a teacher, another Peace Corps teacher friend, Alison Cumbow, who served in Kupiansk Vuzlovyi, introduced me to a Ukrainian English teacher named Oksana Boiko. She taught at a different village school within the same Kupiansk region. Her mother also taught at a local school named Lyceum #3 and was Alison’s local school counterpart. Oksana was the official counterpart for another Peace Corps volunteer who served in youth development at her school.
I spent many fun-filled weekends hanging out in Kupiansk with Alison and Oksana. We worked on various educational projects together, like summer camps providing information about HIV-AIDS prevention. We went swimming, ice skating, and Oksana and I even celebrated the New Year together! Even after I returned to the US, Oksana has remained one of my closest friends from Ukraine.
A WAR-RAVAGED LIFE
Similar to Shevchenkove (the village where I served in the Peace Corps), Kupiansk Vuzlovyi did not fare well when the Russians invaded Ukraine in 2022. It was heavily targeted as a strategic transportation hub near the border and seized by the Russians early during the confrontation and later regained by Ukraine, then recaptured once again by the Russians in 2023. As a result, the town has been demolished. Almost all of Kupiansk Vuzlovyi’s citizens are homeless now. They have lost their homes, their jobs, their hope for the future and in too many cases, they have lost their lives fighting on the front lines.
In May 2025, Alison's former school, Kupiansk Lyceum #3, was entirely destroyed by bombings. Alison shared a video on social media of the school on fire, which was absolutely heartbreaking to see.
I reached out to Oksana to check how her family has been doing. In the early days of the war, Oksana escaped from Kharkiv to Poland with her 8-month old daughter and 13-year old stepdaughter. Her 16-year old son had gone to visit his grandparents in Kupiansk and was unfortunately trapped there during the Russian occupation. It took Oksana and the two children about a week to make it safely to Krakow, where they had to restart their lives and try to find a new place to live. In 2023, Oksana relocated with the two children (now ages 4 and 17 years) to Lviv, a large city in western Ukraine. It took two and a half months to get Oksana’s son out of the frontline territory. He now works and studies in Poland. Oksana’s mother has moved to the nearby city of Kharkiv. Oksana says she’s “relatively safe,” although frankly there is no safe place in Ukraine anymore.
Oksana and her mother still teach English. The classes have been fully remote for years and the town goes through frequent blackouts. She provides social, legal, and psychological support for the schoolchildren and their parents. The obstacles the teachers and families face are daunting: Students try to study online. Many have received laptops and technology from the government–but the needs they have are still staggering.
HOW PROJECT OLLIE HELPED
Over the past three months, Project Ollie worked directly with Oksana to try to help teachers and students in Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi. Oksana connected us directly with her school: Kupiansk Lyceum #3, which serves around 320 students from ages 6 to 18, and is located within the Kharkiv region. Only about 100 of the students remain within the Kharkiv region, a handful are now living in other parts of Ukraine, 80 are in Russia and 120 have relocated to other countries.
For this project, Oksana worked with the school director, Nina Yudaieva, and other volunteers to first survey teachers and get a list of essential items that they felt would help their students–then second, to distribute the supplies to the school teachers and students, including those who had moved out of the region to other parts of Ukraine and Europe.
Together, we purchased the following items for teachers and students in Kupiansk, which came to a total of $8,800.
Laptop computers for school teachers, which is critical as all lessons are still being taught remotely through Zoom and Google Meet;
Laser printer, ink cartridge, and copy paper for the school secretary;
Official school journals and notebooks for the school secretary;
Textbooks for students in 1-11th grades, including subjects such as Ukrainian language,
grammar, mathematics, work / professional trades, art, reading, English, geography, chemistry, and computer science;
Art supplies such as paint, paintbrushes, and many others for primary school students;
World maps and educational games for other school children.
The complexities of delivering goods in a warzone made this task surprisingly difficult. Sergiy, a Ukrainian native from Kharkiv who now lives abroad and serves as Secretary for Project Ollie, worked through on-the-ground entrepreneurs to purchase laptops and software.
Oksana and the other volunteers in Ukraine provided receipts for everything they had purchased at Ukrainian supermarkets, bookstores, and other small school supply shops.
The teachers and students were extremely grateful for all the support from Project Ollie. With the support from this project, the children now have the materials and textbooks that they need to continue learning while surviving electricity blackouts and internet outages. Many families have been impacted heavily by the war as their fathers, brothers and other men are still fighting for their country on the front lines. Local jobs are scarce. But the people of Ukraine are resourceful: they grow vegetables in backyard gardens and share what they have amongst each other.
The war has also triggered crazy price increases for much needed items. For example, a math textbook for first graders now costs 400 UAH (about $9.5 USD), which amounts to what many people are earning for a day’s work. For the first-grade class, the teacher requested support to purchase five textbooks for each student: math, grammar and reading, arts, labor and English language. In total, the set of these books cost 1240 UAH (about $30 USD). For most parents of the first grade students in this class, the cost of buying a set of these textbooks equals their average one-week salary.
The teachers and students shared photos with us when they received the items. Some of them were distributed at central metro stations within the nearby city of Kharkiv, because the majority of the students have been relocated to the college and university dorms, where they live with four to five people in a single room.
EXPANDING SUPPORT TO LVIV
Since Oksana relocated to Lviv two years ago, she is now actively working with local schools and youth organizations in that area. As a result, Project Ollie has taken on two more projects:
We are working with “Zymna Voda” which is a local organization that supports children and families in need.
This organization works with about 200 children and families that have been displaced from war-torn regions of Ukraine, around 70 orphans who have lost both parents in combat zones, and 65 people who have a range of physical and mental disabilities. Our goal will be to deliver school supplies including daycare essentials (diapers, wipes, and other hygienic items) in partnership with this organization.
The teachers from Kupiansk Lyceum #3 also identified a specific family that is struggling with extraordinary hardships even by local standards: Four children, ages 4, 6, 10 and 11 years old, were left homeless on the frontline and without a guardian. They have been sent to live with their 70-year-old grandmother in a remote village within the Kharkiv region. But she is struggling to make ends meet and has requested additional support for school supplies.
THANK YOU
With our whole hearts, we are deeply grateful for the support you have provided the students and teachers in Kupiansk Lyceum #3. Every dollar goes directly to the students and teachers. (Project Ollie is run entirely on a volunteer basis.)
Each donation brings a little brightness into the lives of children and teachers.
Over and over, the recipients of Project Ollie’s gifts have shared their gratitude–and surprise.
Even knowing that people, a world away, remember and care for them has touched their hearts and warmed their spirits.
You are making a difference. And so, again, thank you.
If you can provide additional support to the students of Ukraine, please use this donation link to Project Ollie here. We are a federally recognized 501c3. Also, spreading awareness of our mission goes a long way. Connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
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