3/23/22, 5:04 PM
Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
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Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in
Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking
story”
Jorge Pratts has experienced firsthand the pain and “heartbreaking” scenes caused by Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine
Jorge Pratts delivers food to Ukrainians in Poland. (Suministrada)
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3/23/22, 5:04 PM
Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
On Monday, Puerto Rican Jorge Pratts began serving meals to Ukrainian
refugees on the Polish border. Just the first two days have been enough to
experience firsthand the pain and “heartbreaking” scenes caused by Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine (https://www.elnuevodia.com/topicos/conflictoentre-rusia-y-ucrania/).
Pratts, a first responder from Puerto Rico and volunteer for the nonprofit
Operation Blessing, arrived in Poland on March 1. Since then, he has been
arranging the logistics to be able to provide food to thousands of Ukrainian
refugees at the Medyka and Rzeszow border crossings, he said.
“We had to coordinate where to cook, what to cook. We do
consider culture. We don’t just put out ham and cheese
sandwiches. You have to ask for permits. We prepare the meals in
a food truck we have. Also, the first week is only for assessment,”
he explained.
“We don’t start any project just like that, precisely because we are few, and we
have many areas (to cover) medical, water engineers... as for my area, which is
providing food, we do it in phases. It’s not like we arrive and start cooking,” he
added in an interview with El Nuevo Día, before going to a place called
Macros, an hour and a half away, to buy food for five days.
Pratts is part of a group of four volunteers from Operation Blessing that were
deployed to Poland. The organization has been helping people in need around
the world for more than 40 years. Since it was founded on November 14, 1978,
they have assisted in conflicts or disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina in
Louisiana, the Ebola outbreak in Liberia and, more recently, in the aftermath
of Hurricanes María, Harvey, Florence and Michael, as well as places severely
affected by the COVID-19
(https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/coronavirus/) pandemic. For
Pratts, this is his fifth mission as a responder.
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Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
He said he has already signed a contract for a warehouse and a
house for approximately 40 volunteers.
“I already have beds for 35,” he said with joy.
Long days
His days start at 7:00 a.m. and end at 3:00 a.m. Pratts does not complain,
because he knows there are worse scenarios.
“Firefighters are on 36-hour shifts. It’s war. It’s inhumane what’s
going on,” he described.
The day before yesterday, and 21 days into the Russian invasion, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky
(https://www.elnuevodia.com/topicos/volodymyr-zelensky/) asked the
U.S. Congress for help during a video address. “I call on you to do more,” he
said.
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Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
So far, more than three million Ukrainians have fled their country, according
to United Nations reports. It is the largest refugee crisis in Europe since
World War II. Poland, west of Ukraine, has already received 1.9 million
refugees, according to official figures from the Polish government, whose
President Andrzej Duda has asked for international aid to assist them.
Most of the refugees are women and children. A Ukrainian
government order bans men between 18 and 60 from leaving the
country to register for military conscription. An estimated 100,000
Ukrainians cross the border into Poland daily, and volunteers
receive them there.
Pratts is one of the thousands of volunteers who have arrived at Polish soil to
assist the refugees. Only a few hours into serving meals, he has already felt the
daily suffering of the Ukrainians.
“Yesterday (the day before yesterday), I had been serving food for about five
hours when I decided to sit down for coffee with a lady who was alone, and I
saw she was in a better mood because she was alone. She did not come with
children. She came with her suitcase. She is a high school Russian, Ukrainian
and English teacher, and she had 42 students. With tears in her eyes, she
told me that she was going to miss them all. That she is aware that
this (the invasion) does not have anything to do with the common
Russian citizens, that she knows about brainwashing in Russia,
that it is all clearly (Vladimir) Putin. She told me that she was sure that
Ukraine was going to win, that she was sure that Ukraine had the strength to
win”, said Pratts, who stressed that, despite the woman’s strength, she also
told him about the uncertainty invading her.
Pratts pointed out that where he distributes food is not a shelter, but an area
on the border where thousands of Ukrainians arrive to go to other places.
“(There), there was this boy, about 14 years old, he had been waiting for three
days for the aunt to pass,” Pratts said and added after a long wait, the boy
could finally meet with his aunt.
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Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
He also recalled how he met a waitress who was getting ready to go
to work at about 5:00 p.m., but her routine was interrupted by a
Russian bombing.
Jorge Pratts together with his grandmother and his father Raymond Gerena. (Suministrada)
“They bombed the street right in front of her and she, who was on the second
floor (of a building), miraculously landed on the first floor and was able to get
away with her children,” she told Pratts.
He also assisted a woman who was waiting for her nephew and her mother
had died.
“A lady came holding the hand of her child, who seemed to have a bone or
muscle deformity and could hardly walk, (but) he came with a smile on his
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Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
face when he realized he was safe, that they were giving him toys,” said Pratts,
30, a resident of San Juan.
He noted that he also sees many grandmothers with their
grandchildren or “adult grandchildren who come with
grandparents who can hardly walk.”
“When I hear them speaking Russian, that’s when it breaks my heart because
it implies that they come from the other side of Ukraine. They have come all
the way across the country to get here (Poland). When they come speaking
Ukrainian, they have been walking for one or two weeks. When they come
speaking Russian, it means that they could have been walking for up to a
month. When this (Russian invasion) started, they were already leaving (their
country),” he said.
“Who do you call when you have nowhere to go?”
Pratts said that, at the end of his shift, in the early hours of the morning, he
did not unplug the heater of a tent they were staying to help a refugee woman.
He added that the woman thanked him for the gesture after noting that he
was due to leave more than an hour before.
“She told me, ‘who do you call when you have nowhere to go or
who do you ask for help when no one is waiting for you?’ (There
are) several, several (heart-breaking stories). Every meal served is
a heartbreaking story,” he said.
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Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
Groceries bought by Pratts to help Ukrainian refugees. (Suministrada)
He added that in the few days he has been providing food, he keeps himself
“four eyes”. He has delivered 150 meals daily, but the expectation is to reach
1,000.
“Yesterday –because of the same offensive on the other side– fewer people
were crossing, which is not good at all. So we continue. Today, more
(refugees) are supposed to come,” said the young man who speaks perfect
Spanish and English and is trying to learn Creole and Polish.
The Ukraine-Poland border is lined with mountains of clothes, basic needs,
baby carriages, toys, and food, a sign of people’s compassion and generosity.
But the place is heavily guarded by police and military authorities.
“We see more military activity and more preparation (as a siren
appeared in the conversation, Pratts later explained was an
ambulance). They are installing aircraft and more intelligent police
vehicles,” he said.
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Puerto Rican helping Ukrainian refugees in Poland: “Every meal served is a heartbreaking story” - El Nuevo Día
When asked if he had any fears, Pratts spoke of their concern that a Russian
or pro-annexation Ukrainian would arrive on the scene to cause harm.
“Our biggest concern in terms of shelter is that all of a sudden, someone
comes to infiltrate the area. So, right now, they are asking us for on-site
identification. They are giving us special IDs. There are Polish, French,
English and Dutch police and army and a lot of Americans,” he said.
On Polish territory, close to Ukraine, there are U.S. military bases. Poland is a
member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), which has warned Russia
(https://www.elnuevodia.com/topicos/rusia/) that any attack against a
member nation will be repelled.
So far, Pratts said, they remain vigilant, and they are seeing
changes to strengthen security. For example, he explained, the
heating is gas-based and will be replaced with electricity.
For donations to Operation Blessing, you can go to ob.org/crisis
(http://ob.org/crisis), recalled Pratts, who asked that it is important to
specify that the aid is for Ukraine because “there are many more causes and
missions.”
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