Scott Hayes | [email protected]
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Volunteering at a soup kitchen is important and meaningful work, particularly if it's on the other side of the world during a war.
Seeing a need and stepping up to fill that need without compensation is an action that will always serve the soul while filling others鈥� bellies.聽
When Taggart Wilson was thinking about the war in Ukraine, he felt compelled to help too. Donning a uniform for combat isn鈥檛 for everyone, but there are many facets to military service. Chopping vegetables to fuel those soldiers on the frontline is also a vital effort, he has since discovered.
鈥淚 think [I felt] just a sense of solidarity with people who are suffering a really grave injustice right now and the desire to help in some way... find some way to channel that energy to help that I think a lot of people around the world felt when they were watching these horrible images emerge on their computers and on their television screens,鈥� he said during a long-distance phone interview with the 51暗网 after another day of work at the in Lviv.
鈥淣ot being a soldier, I had to find another way to channel that energy. I found the volunteer kitchen on Twitter, and decided that'd be a good first step to get into Ukraine. I've been travelling around a little bit, but I decided to stay here. I felt like it鈥檚, for the time being, where I can maybe do the most good.鈥�
Doing good, for Wilson, has meant cleaning and chopping many vegetables since he landed in Ukraine nearly two months ago. With workdays frequently extending to 12 hours and nary a day off, he speaks of the challenges of being separated from both his partner in British Columbia and his aging parents still in Jasper.
Those challenges are multiplied by being in a country under invasion. While he鈥檚 far from the action, the risks are still there and they are great.
On top of all of that, he has never chopped so many vegetables. He cooks at home, he said, but it鈥檚 nothing like what he鈥檚 doing now.聽
It鈥檚 all worth it, though.
鈥淚t's quite rewarding, I have to say, even though we're not getting paid. There's just a sense of solidarity with the Ukrainian people, and being part of the war effort and keeping soldiers fed who are fending off fascism is a wonderful thing.鈥�
The Kitchen was founded in 2014, in the period when Russia illegally annexed Crimea. In these years, it has seen volunteers from across the world come to prepare millions of dehydrated meals for the war effort.
Wilson has another few weeks before he returns to Canada. There鈥檚 an internal conflict that he feels between two forces pulling at him, including his family and his property that needs tending. If all things were equal, he said, he would definitely stay where he is until the war was over.聽
Once those responsibilities are taken care of here, he fully intends to return and help out again in some capacity, whether it鈥檚 at the kitchen or elsewhere. Volunteering drives him too much now to ignore it.
鈥淭here's zero question about that, and that's actually quite a common theme among the international volunteers. The people I've talked to who are back home now have some really feeling of emptiness. I'm not looking forward to that,鈥� he confessed.聽
鈥淚 can absolutely understand why. If anybody like me who maybe was searching for a bit of meaning in their life comes here and finds that sense of solidarity and camaraderie and meaning, it probably doesn't feel good to not be there anymore, and not be part of it and be able to help.鈥�
