Audrey and I first saw local singer/songwriter Martin Kerr at a now-defunct nightclub and restaurant back in 2011. He is a tremendously talented and soulful individual so we were glad for an opportunity to see him tonight, but even after an incredibly challenging week, he was only the sixth-most impressive individual we saw onstage tonight.
And to put this into perspective, bear in mind that this was at a benefit concert scrabbled together less than ten days ago, and only six days after Kerr snapped his femur while playing soccer. Such a trooper!
Kerr's music is much mellower and less aggressive than the majority of my musical diet, but he is truly a gifted vocalist and tremendous acoustic guitar player, and it is a genuine pleasure to listen to him in a small venue like the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex, which is only a few blocks from our home in northwest Edmonton. Voluminously charismatic and friendly, he opened the show by explaining that performing while coming down off a wave of painkillers was at least one way to truly feel like a rock star.
Audrey (a devoted Martin Kerr fan) and I were happy to donate the price of a couple tickets to YEG4Ukraine without knowing too much about it, but midway through his 80-minute set, he yielded the stage to a quintet of everyday-looking middle-aged men while he hobbled offstage on his crutches for a breather. These men were not musicians but quickly became the stars of the show.
Pawel and Nestor Turczyk are local brothers, the eldest of which came here as a child when his parents fled the collapsing Soviet Union. They have family in western Ukraine and eastern Poland and are familiar with the area. Rather than hem and haw about what might be done, they have arranged to fly to Poland later this week and rent a van to bring in supplies and humanitarian aid and to ferry out refugees. The town they are headed to is about 60,000 people but has seen 100,000 desperate and displaced people pass through it every single day.
When word about their endeavour got out, they had so many people asking how they could help that they set up a GoFundMe page called YEG4Ukraine with a goal of $30,000. This goal was met so quickly that three childhood friends (Tim, Daniel and James Sousa) have come on board to help. Each of these men is paying their own way in terms of airfare and accommodation and (presumably) lost wages, but with more hands to help, they pushed the fundraising goal to $60,000.
They leave this Thursday, and they have raised $67K thus far, and I hope tonight's cash donations bring them even further over the top. And a third brother from Halifax will be meeting them in Krakow as well.
Thanks to having contacts in the area, they have a keen sense of what is actually needed, and see themselves as having a golden opportunity to have a direct impact. They are bringing 30+ suitcases between them filled with tactical first aid kits as well as other hard-to-find items, as well as prepaid Visa cards that can help people with little more than the clothes on their back to obtain food and shelter.
With luck, we were told, perhaps those first aid packs will ensure that there are a couple more happy reunions when the current conflict is over, and maybe a handful fewer tragedies.
The selflessness of these men is completely overwhelming to me. Forsaking the comforts and safety that most of us have come to take for granted, they are travelling overseas into a literal warzone in order to help people. It is such a stark and salient counterpoint to the horror and terror happening in places like Kharkiv and Melitopol and Odessa right now that it does more than inspire me - it gives me actual, palpable hope that somehow, the resistance of Ukraine could somehow be successful.
In the middle film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers, King Theoden of Rohan, awestruck by the brutality of the Urk-hai forces relentlessly attacking the supposedly impregnable fortress of Helm's Deep, is at the edge of despair. He asks Aragorn, pleadingly: "what can men do against such reckless hate?"
I sometimes find myself asking a similar question of late, deep in the recesses of my heart.
Aragorn's response is to fight, to ride out together into the very teeth of the storm, and there are people doing that very thing in Ukraine at this very moment.
But there are others, unbowed, looking for ways to aid both those in battle and those fleeing it. They are not only expending time and money and effort, but risking their very bodies to help people in need dealing with a foe that recognizes no civility, no noncombatants, no safe zones.
What else can I do but give to help those who are helping? Audrey and I gave to the GoFundMe page tonight.
Well, I guess the other thing I can do is ask for others to do the same; COMAA readership, I know that not all 14 of you live in Edmonton, but I know many of you have ties to this community, if not roots. And even if you don't, I implore you to support these "five local lads" as Martin Kerr called them, as they prepare to leave Alberta in four days to do their best in an impossibly tragic situation- and not by fighting, but by helping. Please, if you can, give.
At this time, in this place, I cannot imagine a worthier cause.
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| https://www.gofundme.com/f/yeg4ukraine |
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