Since the first day of the war, a team of Dumbledore’s Army volunteers has distributed more than 100,000 meals to our defenders and critical infrastructure workers, as well as to civilians.
From the very beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, we began to build a system that did not exist before, namely, an alternative system of supply, logistics and food, which operates primarily through responsible business, volunteers and donors (both financial and those ready to provide free goods).
The first and the main step to successful development and further operation of such a system is to overcome the barrier of trust and establish effective communication between all parties.
This stage took a little over a month and today we consider it a success. In addition, it is necessary to create trust and coordinated work between business and volunteers. This part turned out to be much more difficult.
Finding and establishing relationships with manufacturers, suppliers and chain stores to get food and equipment, creating a database of active volunteers, training volunteers and using our software are endless processes that require time, desire and talent.
The time that volunteers spend on their activities has crossed all the boundaries of volunteering and turned into a life of service to the people of Ukraine.
Our armed forces are projected to grow by almost THREE times (from 243,000 active servicemen to 600,000) in order to live next to an unbalanced, repulsive neighbour who wants to rob, rape, and take away everything you have.
At the same time, the system of public procurement and supply for the Armed Forces has long rotted away from corruption and barely performed even in peacetime.
There is no need to talk about how it has been functioning for the last two months. In fact, the business and volunteer spirit of our people STILL support our defenders.
Given all the above, we have several statements:
- Dumbledore's Army (hereinafter DA) and FVSM LLC will continue their work to supply our defenders and citizens who have been forced to temporarily leave their homes with: quality food, tactical MREs, medicines and logistics services for at least as long as "Russian Peace" and its threat to our state exist (and possibly longer);
- DA scales along the Dnipro River, which we historically owe the existence of our civilization and the Ukrainian nation to. Our goal is to create an alliance between volunteers, business and our defenders in five cities: Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kremenchuk, Dnipro and Zaporizhia. After displacing the enemy from our territories, this alliance will include two more cities - Nikopol and Kherson;
- DA and members of the alliance will systematically enlist, test and train volunteers who, if necessary, can be mobilized in the event of enemy aggression or any other humanitarian crisis;
- DA and FVSM LLC plan to prove the effectiveness of our organizational, logistical and communication model, present it to the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine and implement alongside with the PROZORO procurement system (which has actually revealed its incapability to supply even the regular part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, not talking about units newly arranged after the February 24th);
- DA and FVSM LLC together with the members of the alliance will develop a scheme of financial compensation for the use of production, warehousing, logistics and any other capacities of ALL members of the alliance by establishing legal contractual relations with the MoD.
We want to share our experience and scale this WORKING model because it is undoubtedly more effective than any other available today, and can be the lifeline that will help to use available resources most efficiently and save many lives in case of force majeure, such as wars, environmental disasters and cataclysms.
IN FACT, we are already scaling our project to Cherkasy, Kremenchuk, Dnipro and Zaporizhia, creating similar chains of communication, production and supply of cooked meals. According to the preliminary plan, part of our team, together with the necessary food and equipment, will soon travel along the Dnipro, stopping in all the above-mentioned cities to establish relevant processes.
At our disposal we already have a food truck, which was provided to us by our friends, who drove it all the way from Poland, and a pickup truck, which we are going to load with the necessary foodstuffs and gas cylinders. Today, a refrigerator truck remains a critical need to transport products that require a certain storage temperature.
There is also a hole of 2 million UAH in the company's budget, which was caused by 50 days of this war. We keep looking for possible options; however, we would still be immensely grateful for financial, professional or any other help in order to move forward.
Our volunteer convoy is also in dire need of your support on the ground - restaurant, shop, warehouse and production owners need to come together to build a reliable system that can function effectively and meet the immediate food needs of our military and civilian institutions, WITHOUT simultaneous SACRIFICE of everything that our entrepreneurs have built in these short periods of peace.
We will definitely help you with this, because we already have a lot of experience in setting up all the processes - cooking in large quantities, training and coaching staff, building supply chains, operational support, and last but not least - connections with the military, which are actively facilitating our activities under present circumstances.
TO EMPHASIZE on the main thing: If you and the people loyal to you live 24/7 on a business that feeds, treats, transports and saves our civilian population - THIS IS NOT VOLUNTEERING. THIS IS WHAT OUR STATE SHOULD HAVE DONE AND SHOULD DO. This work must be compensated from the funds that are currently being created for the reconstruction of Ukraine, and we plan to unite in order to prove our rights in accordance with THE AMOUNT OF WORK we have done.
That's fair. Full stop.
Together we win! Everything’s gonna be Ukraine!