Credit union leaders from Poland and the U.S. have launched a new fund to gather additional aid for Ukrainian refugees escaping the ongoing war with Russia.
The Polish American Credit Union Support Fund was founded in March of this year through a collaborative effort between Bruce K. Foulke, president and chief executive of the $4.1 billion-asset American Heritage Credit Union in Philadelphia, and Brian Branch, former president and CEO of the World Council of Credit Unions in Madison, Wisconsin. To date, more than $400,000 has been raised to help provide necessary medical supplies and organize housing for displaced refugees.
“Watching TV in February and seeing everything going down with no initial help, I got pissed off,” Foulke said. In addition to being CEO, “I'm a volunteer firefighter and I just said, screw this, I gotta do something, I can't sit here."
When setting up the support fund, "my requirement was no freakin' money goes to administrative costs," Foulke said. "Every dime that's donated to this goes directly to the credit union foundation over in Poland."
Ukrainians are
The fund's founders took care to minimize the potential for points of friction within the donation process by tying it to the National Association of Cooperative Savings and Credit Unions, Poland’s national trade association for credit unions or “skoks,” as they are known. Soon afterward, work began on a framework that would ensure the needs of Ukrainian refugees are adequately satisfied.
One designated use of the gathered donations involved the purchase of ambulances for transporting sick and injured civilians over the border to Polish hospitals where they would receive needed medical attention, Foulke said. Using the collected capital, he was able to purchase two ambulances — costing roughly $75,000 each — and put them into immediate service.
The stress from the influx of Ukrainian refugees has strained the Polish credit union system, creating a need for collaboration among credit unions, aid organizations and government agencies, Branch said.
“It's very inspiring to see how Polish citizens contributed relief resources, but the question was how sustainable can this be for such a large influx of people over a long time?” Branch said. “When we talked about that, the credit unions had provided some of that relief, food and shelter and water when the refugees first arrived, but then they focused on how can we make these people productive members of the economy, so part of the fund’s effort was to get the refugees in a position where they can find work, support their families and get their kids into school.”
Rafał Matusiak, who in addition to his role as a member on the board of WOCCU has been president and CEO of NACSCU since 2012, explained that continual support from the U.S. and other countries is essential for adapting to the changing needs of refugees.
“This is a total war [where] Russian troops destroy everything that they encounter on their way and that they cannot steal," Matusiak said. Ukrainians "receive tremendous help from organizations like ours, and they receive even more help from the Polish government, but our possibilities are not endless and the war is still going on.”
Other credit union organizations such as
Andrew Horbachevsky, who chairs the UACUA, emphasized the importance of the role held by the association of 12 Ukrainian-American credit unions.
"The Russian war has proven to be genocidal for citizens, hospitals, shopping centers and residential apartments which have been bombed,” Horbachevsky said. “This war will not have a speedy resolution and Ukraine needs all the support now and in the future. … Credit unions are all about people helping people. It's as simple as that."
As the war continues and those displaced from their homes face new challenges, organizations like UACUA, WOCCU and the Polish American Credit Union Support Fund will continue to evaluate how they can provide the most effective assistance.
“It makes sense that credit unions are seeing this issue in Ukraine, where democracy is really at risk and credit unions are at risk [as well]. … So the fact that credit unions in the United States are stepping up is very symbolic of the credit union mission as a whole,” said Greg Neumann, director of communications for WOCCU.
