One last week of me, Robin, and then we should have our Scott back.

This week's raffle has an utterly lovely twist, the kind of thing that makes me not just think, but know that there's some hope left for humanity, after all. I'm excited for you to read on and find out what it is.

Updates

We actually have some for you this week! How exciting!

Taskforce Nobody, a drone unit with 112th Territorial Defense, received many many kilos of 3D printer filament. Arcaist wanted you to notice the flamingo.

r/ukraine - 3D printer filament for Team Nobody with the 112th, ft. a flamingo

Our adopted GUR team received three laptop monitors. I want you to notice their dog's very important ears. They almost made me miss the shoulder cat.

r/ukraine - Three laptop monitors for "our" GUR team

The 25th, whom we love and who loves all of us and you right back, received two Starlink Minis.

r/ukraine - 2 Starlink Minis for our beloved 25th

Finally, Madyar's Birds received a powerstation. I really enjoy the way this guy chose to obscure his face.

$2 Tuesday

This week's $10 Tuesday pack starts with a hand-crotched heart from Arcaist's talented, prolific, utterly wonderful mom. It also features a patch from the similarly wonderful 25th, a sticker sheet with classic designs from earrrrrrly in the full-scale war (remember the lady who brought down a drone with a jar of pickles? seems a lifetime ago, doesn't it?), and two delightful bits of embroidery: a bavovna tote bag, and a framed "portrait" of Ukraine made from traditional vyshyvanka motifs.

$5 Pomsta Pack

Here's where it gets special, friends.

Unless you only joined us in the last month or so, you've seen this picture before. This was the $10 pack in our 17 March raffle. The winning ticket was held by a longtime regular--one of our earliest, in fact. They've won a number of our raffles and, they say, decorate their office with Ukraine items. Here's what they said to us when they were notified that they'd won this package:

"I want you to keep raising money and that is a nice package if you can resell it (even in pieces) or find a private buyer! Maybe I'll just donate in the future but I like to enter the raffles to encourage others to bid."

We want to honor their astonishing kindness by offering someone else a chance to win this package.

I'll let Scott tell you about this one again:

Arcaist pulled out all the stops on this one. The Pomsta Brigade was so thankful for your help that they sent these items to show their appreciation.

A volunteer from Trostyanets Territorial Defense beautifully painted a .50 cal ammo can. The writing is a section from Schevchenko's poem "And Archimedes, and Galileo" and reads "І на оновленій землі врага не буде супостата" (And on the renewed land, there will be no enemy, no adversary). They also provided their unit patch and unit flag, but they didn't stop there! They sent a set of shot glasses made from 40mm grenade casings!

This package is imbued with a little extra awesomeness now, thanks to the original winner. Whoever wins this one will be on the receiving end of something very special, indeed.

In closing:

A few weeks ago, I woke up to a series of messages from a foreign fighter friend who was injured in 2023 and is back in his Western European home country. He sent me a link to a book called Reckoning Dreams and Fire by Issac Luna, a Mexican-American Marine who volunteered to fight in Ukraine in early 2022. He was one of the foreigners who helped fight the russians in Bucha and Irpin. My friend, who was in Irpin with him, wrote:

"This guy was with me in ukraine in 2022. He wrote a book. I'm in this book. There's a picture of me in this book."

Well. Obviously I had to buy and read the book. I'm about halfway through, I think; they've been through Bucha and Irpin, and are now on their way to Mykolaiv.

I had dinner with Issac last night. He signed a copy of the book for us to offer up in a future raffle, so keep an eye out for that.

There is so. much. I can say about this book. I can't seem to boil it down into something pithy and coherent, though, so here are two disconnected thoughts that want to be said.

Those earliest days, when the russian column was encroaching on Kyiv and the russians were brutalizing Bucha and Irpin and other surrounding settlements, were a scary time for me personally. Half my heart is in Kyiv; Kyiv is where my people were. Reading the book, knowing that Issac and my friend were there helping, somehow gives me a bit of retroactive comfort. Obviously I know how those stories end, and it's with liberation but also with unspeakable horror and sorrow; somehow, knowing now that they were there at that time soothes that a little for me. It's the oddest thing.
In his book, Issac talks about a brief stint working with the stagehand union in Vegas. I was a stagehand myself for a long, long time. I knew hands in Vegas while Issac was working there. There's a significant chance he was doing calls with people I knew. It's wild to me, our worlds interesecting in two such wildly disparate settings over two decades apart.

Which brings me, at last, to the point I wanted to make: this world is a small, strange, profoundly interconnected place. Nothing is ever as far off as you think it is. I appreciate, more than I can express, that so many of you know that and understand the importance of Ukraine to the larger world. Thank you for getting it.

-Robin

P.S. Issac has helped UFL, too. A couple years ago, your donations sent a number of water filters to a team fighting in Zaporizhzhia. Issac helped get them there.

Don't forget:

Givebutter may limit ticket purchases to 10 at a time, but as many of you know, you can always buy additional ticket packs without limit.

UFL has amazing art here if you haven't seen it yet!

And please note that although the event description mentions a livestream, there will be none. And while we do deeply appreciate those of you who choose to donate as well as buying raffle tickets, we want to make it clear that donations are not required to enter the raffle.

21 April UFL raffle

It's déjà vu all over again!