Friends and family members gathered in the school gym at St. Mary’s Parish in Rockville, Maryland on June 25 to package meals for Ukrainian refugees, as the Russian invasion and military assault of Ukraine entered its fifth month.
Mary McCormick works in development at St. Ann's Center for Children, Youth and Families in Hyattsville, Maryland, and serves on the center’s board of directors. Despite being an active volunteer in her community, this was McCormick's first time organizing an event of this kind.
She was motivated after volunteering at an event with the nonprofit known as The Outreach Program earlier this year, where she met Bobby and Michelle Polito, who work with that program and assisted McCormick in planning the event at St. Mary's for over a month. According to their website, The Outreach Program’s mission is “to provide safe water, food, medical care, and education to children and those in need, at home, and abroad.”
The event ran from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. that Saturday, with almost 175 people helping who were split into two shifts.
McCormick described the effort as interfaith, saying that people from other parishes and other faiths came to help.
“Friends, family, St. Mary’s Parish, as well as other parishes in the archdiocese and friends and family in the neighborhood (were here),” McCormick said.
McCormick was accompanied by her family, including her husband Matt McCormick and their three children, Kevin, Elizabeth and Johnny, who attended St. Mary’s School when they were younger.
“Everybody wanted to do something for the Ukrainian situation and really, one email went out as well as a notice in the bulletin [at St. Mary’s],” McCormick said of the event’s turnout.
McCormick’s daughter, Elizabeth, invited coworkers from the cybersecurity company Tenable to volunteer at the event, including Brendan Watts, who works as an enterprise success manager at Tenable.
“My colleague who I respect, Elizabeth McCormick, was socializing that they were doing this event and I didn’t want to miss it, I wanted to help out our fellow humans in the Ukraine,” Watts said.
While packing supplies, Deacon Lou Brune, who serves at St. Mary’s, recalled his experience in the Army, where he helped in refugee camps.
“I spent my 30 years in the Army and a lot of that time doing civil military operations in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe, working in refugee camps with NGOs, and this is a worthwhile effort, because I’ve been in those situations where you see people have nothing. So it’s wonderful we can contribute in a very positive way to help the Ukrainian people,” Deacon Brune said.
The deacon said he felt volunteer efforts help to humble those participating by making them aware of their own privileges.
“For us Americans, we sometimes don’t appreciate everything that we have, we have so much here and sometimes you don’t appreciate everything, but this is a great opportunity to give back to others,” Deacon Brune said.
The meal packages contained vacuum-sealed rice, dried vegetable seasoning, beans, soy, vitamins, and oatmeal.
“It’s been very heartwarming to [see] people rally both in financial donations and their time, [the event] over-exceeded expectations,” McCormick said. “It’s just very exciting to see.”
When the event was over at 3 p.m., volunteers were invited to Finnegan’s Wake Irish Pub in the Rockville Town Square shopping mall. Appetizers and first drinks were free for volunteers, courtesy of both the bar and the McCormick family.
More than $18,000 was raised to support Ukrainian refugees and 41,000 meals were shipped two days later on Monday June 27.
According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, in the first four months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 4,700 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and 5,900 civilians have been injured. In that time frame, more than 5.5 million Ukrainian refugees have fled into neighboring European countries or been displaced within their country.
