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Support for Ukrainian Refugees in Poland

Frontlines Initiative Update – Support for Ukrainian Refugees in Poland

Welcome to this month’s edition of Foundation Friday, the monthly newsletter from InteraWorks corporate foundation, the Best Year Yet Foundation.

Frontlines Initiative Update

This month we are sharing an update from the Frontlines Initiative – our focus for 2022 to serve the nonprofit teams, professionals, and organizations working on the frontlines in their communities.

This month’s Foundation Friday is a moving, first-hand account from The House of Guardian Angels in Poland, and their work helping women and children refugees who have crossed the border from Ukraine.

The House of Guardian Angels – supporting women and children refugees from Ukraine

For the past 4 years, we have invested in the organization’s growth and capacity-building via the Best Year Yet Team Plan and monthly coaching. We have worked with the leadership team, management team, and the young leaders’ teams who serve at-risk women, children, and families in Poland with various services, including childcare, healthcare, housing, and job training.

We committed to another year of partnership to ensure the gains we helped support are sustainable and that the organization can fulfill its growth trajectory. As we entered another year of partnership, we never could have known how important this work would turn out to be.

First-hand Account from Poland

On March 3rd, 2022, we received the following note from the facilitator and Best Year Yet Partner, Kasia Jaroska-Kurowska:

In Poland, we experience [the war in Ukraine] more strongly, because we are very close to these events. Ukrainians have been working for years in Polish companies, stores, cinemas, we’ve practically met them everywhere… Imagine that during one week almost 700 thousand women and children came to Poland (the number today is closer to 2M)!

Since Tuesday I worked first with the Angel Management Team (monthly review), and since yesterday with the Young Leaders team, I helped them create their annual plan.

The issue of Ukraine was very important to both meetings as we worked on how the Angels, as experts in working with children from [at-risk] families, can help Ukrainian women with children who are already coming to Katowice, Silesia.

Based on information gathered from the city and support services, we developed an action plan for all teams. We felt that we were doing something important and at the same time managing our fear in this situation.

In the end, all these findings and plans became part of the annual, quarterly and monthly plan of the management team and young leaders. We wrote it all into the Best Year Yet PRO [tracking software].

Thanks to the generosity and support that you have given to this organization over the years. You can feel that you are also supporting these poor people of Ukraine through this.

The “why” of our Foundation’s Work

Despite being half the world away, I hope you can share in the knowledge the work we are doing through InteraWorks and the Best Year Yet Foundation is making a real difference – committing to teams and organizations working on the frontlines in their communities, and now at a vital time when so many are relying on The House of Guardian Angels during this crisis.

Thank you so much for your ongoing support of the vital work that we do, and most importantly, the heroic work of so many nonprofit professionals who go above and beyond on the frontlines in their communities.

Thank you very much and we look forward to connecting next month,

Aaron Cohen

Executive Director, Best Year Yet Foundation