OUR COMMUNITY

I

n response to the crisis in Ukraine, Zach Homer, 16, of 
Birmingham, and his friends made volunteering their 
first priority. Even with busy school and sports schedules, 
he, along with Chase Ben-Ezra, 16, and Luke Linovitz, 15, 
set aside time to collect items to support those impacted by 
the ongoing fighting. Together with Ben-Ezra’s father, Steven, 
they took a U-Haul filled with donated goods to a warehouse 
in Hamtramck, where volunteers are organizing the items 
into paletts and shipping containers to be sent out. 
“We just wanted to give back as much as we possibly could 
because that’s the most we could possibly do,” Homer says. 
Word traveled quickly that the boys were holding a fund-
raiser. They posted on social media, and soon had donations 
piling up from people they knew and also people they’d 
never met. “We’d have hundreds of packages on our porch,” 
Homer explains. Within a week, they’d unboxed everything 
and sorted it out for delivery.
His family’s got a personal connection to the Ukraine as 
well, through their housekeeper, Iryna, who has been with 
the family for more than a decade. “She’s part of our family,” 
he says. “She has lots of family fighting and doing everything 
they can to hold their ground and, most importantly, stay 
alive. So we wanted to give back to her as much as possible.”
Homer says he’s impressed by the number of people who 
donated to their cause. “I think the most important part was 
gathering as much stuff as possible to help out as much as 
possible and give people as many resources as they need,” he 
says. “Stuff’s not supposed to get that bad, and it did.”
Warehouse Operations Lead Oleksandr “Sasha” 
Tkachenko, who represents the Ukrainian-American Crisis 
Response Committee, says he was impressed when the 
teens showed up. “It’s something we really like to see, that 
somebody in the younger age is helping. It’s really import-
ant to us.”
 Seeing younger volunteers makes him smile, he adds, 
something he hasn’t done a lot since the conflict started. “It’s 
bringing a smile back to my face,” he says. “They are helping, 
and it’s great.”
Tkachenko’s group, which operates out of a donated 
warehouse, has already shipped five containers and sent 28 
pallets by air. They started out accepting clothes and medical 
items but shifted their focus to building first aid packages. 
They also continue shipping diapers and hygiene products 
like toothpaste. “Those kids, I remember them specifically 

Local teens collect supplies 
for Ukraine.

Tikkun Olam 
in Action

KAREN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER

16 | APRIL 7 • 2022 

Chase Ben-Ezra, Luke Linovitz, 
 
Reid Linovitz and Zach Homer

Zach Homer, Chase Ben-Ezra and
Luke Linovitz

