Time to help and fight. How Meest supports the country during a full-scale war

February 24 began for the Meest team in the same way as for most Ukrainians — with explosions early in the morning. The company says that although they considered a full-scale invasion as one of the possible options, they did not believe in it until the end – that is why the first hours were in shock.

“It soon became clear that our primary task is to help people and the team,” says Rostyslav Kisil. — We have hundreds of branches throughout Ukraine, respectively, employees are in every region, except for those that were occupied until the 24th. Many of them ended up literally in the war zone – that’s why they had to be taken out urgently.

To do this, Meest organized temporary shelters for colleagues in its offices in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil and Vinnytsia — living spaces where you could warm up, charge your phones, take a shower and spend the night. During the stay, the company took over the costs of covering basic needs: food, medicine, baby products. In addition, Meest provided psychological support, as well as assistance in further evacuation abroad.

– This idea came to us spontaneously – then, in the first weeks of the invasion, it was very difficult to find a place to live closer to the west of Ukraine due to the large influx of people. That’s why our offices have become such shelters, which dozens of our employees have used,” recalls Meest Group HR Director Halyna Tsvirkun.

At the same time, the company launched a larger charitable direction — the delivery of “spontaneous” humanitarian aid, which was sent by people from all over the world. “Meest has been an international business since the first day of the company’s foundation. We deliver shipments to more than 70 countries around the world, and we are lucky to have many friends from every corner of the planet — from North America and Europe to Asia,” says Rostislav Kisil.

To receive humanitarian aid, Meest organized centralized points based on its own branches in the USA, Canada and several European countries.

– At first, we acted more reactively, because people from all over the world read the news and went to send help to Ukrainians, – recalls Meest Group Marketing Director Marta Yankiv. — Therefore, for some time our employees abroad processed and sorted the received humanitarian aid literally around the clock.

Then Meest forwarded these goods free of charge and distributed them to public and charitable organizations, foundations, hospitals, and military administrations. In 2022, the company delivered a total of more than 7,000,000 kg. humanitarian aid from the USA, Canada, Europe and China. This activity continues.