Hilton Head man who volunteers with animals in Ukraine plans to bring some back with him
Getting settled in on a flight for his first trip to volunteer with animals in Ukraine could be likened to someone regretting being fastened into a roller-coaster seat, said Hilton Head Islander and local pet groomer Jeff Prekop.
There was that moment of, “Oh no, what did I do?” he said, and then, once it passed, he remembered the thing that got him to board the plane in the first place. For him, it all began when he saw a photo of a child carrying a German shepherd that was almost the child’s size for over a mile to safety amid the Russian invasion that began in February. After that, he said, he was never scared.
“I’m always giving everything I can and this just started hitting home to me,” Prekop said. “Seeing all the images coming in and hearing this shelter has been blockaded, they cannot get any food, the animals are starving ... I could do something.”
As the owners of Groomingdale’s, a pet salon on the island, Prekop said that for his wife, Jen, and him, animal rescue has “always been a part of our life” and the two often donate to animal rights organizations. Sending money just wasn’t enough, he said. He wanted to do more.
“All of a sudden this knowing, this calling ... came over top of me and I was going to go to Ukraine to help,” he said. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to do it.”
Since his first trip several months ago, Prekop has slept in camps, eaten far too much porridge and even picked up a nickname. Despite being the only American along for the ride on trips with Dogbus Transporting Paws Saving Lives, an animal transport and rescue charity stationed in the United Kingdom, fellow volunteers have taken to calling him “Canadian Fred.”
On a typical day, Prekop was riding around for hours to deliver supplies to shelters and, in some cases, to homes of people who were taking in multiple animals at once. As someone who is certified in pet first aid, he was able to assist a veterinarian who assessed the animals they would take with them that were “worst-case scenarios.”
As the invasion has continued, families leaving Ukraine have had to surrender animals to local shelters, resulting in one shelter caring for 450 to 500 animals at one time.
“They had no food,” he said. “They were just taking the animals in as much as they could, because their only alternative was to let them go and they didn’t want to do that.”
‘You get used to it’
In his time volunteering with the organization, Prekop has become accustomed to air raid sirens and knows to “pay attention” when they become more high-pitched. There were several strikes nearby while he was there, he said, but the “missile systems took care of the business.” As the strikes went on, Prekop was able to continue monitoring alerts from the government via an app on his phone. Other than that, he went about his day, behaving as though they were police sirens back home on U.S. 278.
“Everybody else is very nonplussed about it,” he said. “You just get used to it.”
On the second-to-last day he was last there, Prekop helped deliver people and supplies to a zoo in Kyiv with 300 animals and six zookeepers. Because of a scheduling conflict, his group arrived sooner than they had planned. They were told no one would meet with them until 1 p.m., so they decided to head to town to explore. While there, they heard popping sounds “a couple of blocks away” and he immediately knew “those weren’t fireworks.” The team remained safe and was able to wait out the conflict before delivering the supplies.
Now that he is back, Prekop is readying for a June fundraiser hosted by High Tide Rooftop Bar at the Courtyard Marriott and says he plans to start bringing animals back with him, but there are restrictions he must follow first.
“I’m working a couple of angles to get vaccines over there and get as many inoculated as I can and then work the angle of getting them over from that point on,” he said.
The response from the community, he said, has been incredible. Donations have come in from people coming to his grooming salon who heard about what he was doing. Prekop plans to bring all that money with him on his next trip in four weeks, he said. Shipping supplies would get too pricey and it can be difficult to transport medical supplies while keeping them at the proper storage temperature.
“What keeps me going is knowing they need the help and knowing I can help,” he said. “I have to do it.”
This story was originally published May 15, 2022 at 3:21 PM.
