DENVER — Even when the supply chain seems broken, Project C.U.R.E. finds a way to connect the links to help people suffering in a war zone.
“My team’s been working seven days a week all day since this started just working on that one issue," said Douglas Jackson, president and CEO of Project C.U.R.E.
The nonprofit delivers medical supplies and equipment all over the world. The latest shipments from Colorado are bound for Ukraine.
“This is a donation from UCHealth of all kinds of consumable supplies that they need in Ukraine right now," Jackson said, standing beside pallets of boxes stacked inside the hospital system's warehouse in Aurora.
On Tuesday, volunteers with Project C.U.R.E. began clearing the warehouse, loading pallet after pallet of boxes onto a truck.
“With all of our hospitals that have donated, we have about 100 pallets worth of product that we’re going to be donating to Project C.U.R.E," said David Davis, director of supply chain operations with UCHealth.
The excess medical supplies include bandages, surgical gowns, masks, gloves and more.
“Knowing that these supplies are going to go to a war zone is extremely exciting and makes me feel really good," Davis said.
The donated supplies will travel by plane or by ship to Europe. Jackson said it's a three to four day trip by air and a 45-day voyage on water. When the shipment arrives in a place like Warsaw, Poland, Project C.U.R.E.'s partners on the ground take over.
"They drive it across the border through a little green zone," Jackson said. "Someplace that’s safe, a corridor, and they deliver it to the hospitals in Ukraine.”
The logistics are daunting, but Project C.U.R.E. has already pulled it off. In the past couple of days, Jackson said, medical supplies from a warehouse in Chicago arrived in Ukraine.
"We’re getting the pictures back, and we know that the stuff that we sent is getting to those people," Jackson said.
Project C.U.R.E. shared photos from its first delivery to a hospital in Ukraine. One shows men in military uniforms unloading boxes from a truck.
“When you see the things actually arrive, it’s a mixed feeling," Jackson said. "You’re so excited and you’re just so driven to do more.”
The shipment from UCHealth is just the beginning. Jackson said he expects Ukraine will need long-lasting help.
"We’re going to be here for the next 10 years working in Ukraine," Jackson predicted.
Project C.U.R.E. has three more airlifts to Ukraine scheduled this week and plans to send over a cargo container on a ship soon.
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