‘People can work together’: Diverse group raises $130K-plus for Ukraine on Hilton Head
Last Sunday’s HH4 Ukraine concert on Hilton Head raised more than $130,000 for two international charities, but it also drove a point home locally: “People can work together,” said Rabbi Brad Bloom.
Bloom, of Hilton Head’s Congregation Beth Yam and one of the organizers of the event, said the fundraiser was conceived and executed by volunteers in only seven weeks.
“Where you least expected it, there was generosity,” he said. “.... People who didn’t know each other pooled their resources. We were just stunned and blessed with the feeling that there could be a partnership between religion, business, nonprofit and government sectors.”
Anna Doyle, a nursing consultant who stepped in to organize this program after a successful online musical benefit in the middle of the coronavirus lockdown, compared it to building an airplane while it was in the air.
Still, other than a brief delay because of rain, the event at Lowcountry Celebration Park went off without a hitch.
“The group of people that we worked with to get all this in place was just awesome,” Doyle said. She listed nearly 20 individuals, ministers, community groups and town officials who contributed to the effort.
And, on the day of the event, under cloudy skies threatening rain, more than 1,000 people showed up for free performances by the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra, Hilton Head Dance Theater, Mary Green Chorale, Taylor Kent and Sara Burns, Cornbred and White Liquor.
Doyle said a highlight, though, was when three Hilton Head residents who are from Ukraine stepped onto the stage to tell the stories of their families and friends in the war zone.
“That’s what people needed to hear,” she said. “You go along with your everyday life, and you have no concept of ... what they are going through. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the place.”
As of Friday, $137,703 had been raised, and the fund being managed by The Community Foundation of the Lowcountry will remain open for donations through the end of June via HH4Ukraine.com. All of the money will be given to Doctors Without Borders and The World Central Kitchen.
Other donations
As of the end of April, the City of Beaufort had raised $64,000 to help the city of Ostroh, in western Ukraine. About half of that amount was donated by Thibault Gallery through the sale of pins and pendants honoring Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag.
Another partnership led by Beaufort officials is sending 4,000 pounds of grits and 4,000 pounds of corn meal donated by Edisto’s Marsh Hen Mill and 100,000 meals ready to eat donated by Mullins-based SOPAKO. The shipment — also handled by donated services — should be in Ukraine by the end of June, said Beaufort Mayor Stephen Murray, in a news release.
Bluffton-based Tactical Baby Gear, a designer and manufacturer of military-inspired baby gear for dads, donated 75,000 disposable diaper-changing kits to war refugees in Poland in a partnership with Convoy of Hope.
