Maritimers are coming up with creative ways to support Ukraine.
Last week Unfiltered Brewing of Halifax sold a special beer labelled 'Free Ukraine!'
Brewmaster Greg Nash said approximately 220 cans sold out in about seven hours.
"It was $10 dollars a can. We had a lot of people who were just really going out of their way to make sure they got some of that,” Nash said, "the important part for everyone is the aid being sent to help the folks in Ukraine."
Money raised will go the Red Cross relief fund.
Canadian Red Cross spokesperson, Dan Bedell, said as of Friday, 66 million dollars had been raised by all Canadians. Ottawa has pledged to match up to 30 million dollars. Bedell said the money will help with things like emergency shelter, food, water, clothing, medical supplies and shelter supplies.
Tatiana Vasylyeva, a Ukrainian-Canadian healthcare IT professional and a brewer, also reached out to her friends at Foghorn Brewing Company in Rothesay, N.B., to brew a beer for Ukraine.
She and Andrew Estabrooks of Foghorn Brewing are now making a specialty lager that will be called 'Razom.'
"That’s a Ukrainian word that means together," Vasylyeva said. "And we just hope to stand together with Ukraine, raise funds to help many various charities from refugees to medical support."
The aim is to produce about 2000 litres of beer to sell to New Brunswickers.
The project is still very new so exact details of exactly how much of the money will be donated is still to be determined, but Estabrooks said a portion of the profits will be going to help.
"We feel helpless with situations like this. You do what you can," said Estabrooks, brewer and co-owner of Foghorn Brewing.
When bombs fell on Ukraine on Feb. 24, Anastasiia Mereshchuk wanted to help somehow.
She protested. She called her family to help from afar. But she and her husband also decided to make T-shirts.
A few weeks later, she’s sold about 100 of them at a cost of $25 each—all proceeds will go to humanitarian aid.
"It’s very heartwarming to see that you can help. Well you hope that you can help at least someone and we can do something from here," she said.
Nearly three million Ukrainians have fled their homes to Poland and neighbouring countries.
As the need for humanitarian aid mounts, at Topaz Transport in Hammonds Plains, so do the boxes of aid.
"The medical supplies is most important right now," said Oleksii Shatov with the Atlantic Ukrainian Association.
A large room is nearly full of towers of boxes containing medical supplies, food and other items ready to be sent to a warehouse and eventually loaded onto a plane or a shipping container.
Shatov said the group has a sponsor to help pay for the plane but it needs help from businesses to send more supplies.
"We’re looking for sponsors,”" he said.
Delaney Kunitz dropped off a box full of canned food, toiletries and other items Monday.
"If we were in the same situation I would hope someone would do the same for us so," she said.
And all of it is appreciated. Just ask Olya Stepanenko’s grandmother who’s still in Ukraine.
"I was talking to her on the phone. And she started crying because she was so grateful that Canadians and everyone in the world is coming together to help," Stepanenko said.
