Oleksii with his wife and son left the cellar and returned to the house. As soon as they laid down, a bright light flashed before their eyes. An enemy shell hit the house. “My son got me out of the rubble,” Oleksii’s wife told us. And Oleksii was knocked down by the roof and concussed. A neighbor also ran to help put out the fire and helped the family get out.

And later, on March 28, a shell hit the other side of the house. “Since it hit, there was no place to live anymore, so we went to the cellar, settled there, and the neighbors gave us a small stove. We lived like this until May,” Oleksii told.

His daughter and grandson have already returned from evacuation and live in what has remained of their parents’ house. Oleksii is a builder, so he tries to fix the house on his own so that at least there is a roof over the head. Now they have two small, cold rooms in the house with furniture that was given by fellow villagers. Over the past year, the family sheltered 13 cats and several dogs that had nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Now they all are warming up together.

Oleksii and his wife are preparing to become grandparents for the second time because soon they will have a grandson. The family did not leave their native land during the shelling and occupation and does not want to now. They need a temporary home to live in while they are rebuilding their nest.

We set up a modular house for the Pylypenko family with the help of our donors.