Cathy Palmer and Tim Lun have been monthly donors to Leleka for a while now. This time, our Ukrainian team finally got to meet them in person — in Kyiv.
Cathy and Tim aren’t the kind of supporters who watch from a distance. Lifelong believers in freedom and democracy, they saw Ukraine’s struggle as part of a global fight against tyranny. Cathy’s father served as a Marine in World War II; Tim volunteered in Afghanistan twice and later helped friends there escape Taliban death lists to reach the United States. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, standing by was never an option.
Their support for Leleka began almost by chance — a meeting with a Leleka volunteer at a Belarusian church in Brooklyn, an exchange of patches that turned into a lasting partnership. Once they saw how much a medical backpack means on the front line, they committed to donating $1,000 a month. “We wanted to do something real,” Cathy says. “Donating to Leleka means helping save lives on the front lines — it’s something concrete.”
When we met them, it was in our half-destroyed office in Kyiv — damaged in the same wave of strikes they had just lived through. Seeing the damage, Tim and Cathy offered $5,000 toward repairing the office. Our Ukrainian team refused — so they directed the full $5,000 to frontline medics instead.
That’s who Cathy and Tim are.
“We can’t understand how people forget,” Cathy told us. “Standing with Ukraine is standing for freedom — for all of us.”
To Cathy, to Tim, and to every American who refuses to look away — thank you. You are the reason a medic on the Donetsk front opens a fully stocked backpack instead of an empty one.