EO Austin member delivering aid in Romania to refugees
David Gatchell has been a member of EO Austin since 2012. On a professional level, he manages a business in the construction services sector, fulfilling contracts for the US government abroad. He also manages a small real estate portfolio and set up his first business in Romania in 2006. In March 2022, he visited the country again to support their aid efforts and launched his own NGO to continue providing direct aid for the people impacted by the war in Ukraine.
We spoke to him recently to talk about his experience and what he thinks the EO community can do to help.
What is your connection to Ukraine and how did you get involved in your volunteer work?
I’ve made multiple trips to Ukraine over the years. I’ve gotten to learn more about and enjoy the culture, the country, and the people from my experiences there. I actually started my first company in Romania back in 2006 and have lived and owned some property there for several years. I ended up meeting my wife, who is Romanian, during my time there and have made very strong connections to people on both sides of the border. I also spent time earlier in my career in several Russian-speaking countries. Because of my background, I’m able to communicate decently-enough with the people in that region of the world.
So when the crisis started, I mobilized myself from Austin, Texas and arrived in Romania on March 6. I started off in the town of Tulcea, which is about 30 minutes from one of the major border crossings at Isaccea. When I got there, I went to the border and literally just followed signs to find places that were providing support for Ukrainian refugees to find out how I could additionally help. Eventually, I spoke to people who connected me to their Department of Social Services. At the start, I began helping the local shelters in Tulcea to buy food, medicine, and other things that were needed. I also distributed some winter clothes that I had brought from home, collected from people in my neighborhood. They were very generous in contributing.
I also began learning more about what was actually needed there, to be able to help them more effectively. One of those big needs at the start was toothbrushes, for example. So I would go shopping in the grocery stores nearby and just buy out whatever they needed. That was the essence of my first engagement there. I ended up staying 3 weeks and brought my wife and two kids (3 and 5) over midway through that trip. I think it was important to show our kids what it’s like to help other people, and to see other people who aren’t in the same fortunate situation that we are in currently.
How did that first trip evolve into something bigger?
I ended up doing more work from here in Austin once I got home. Many of the needs changed over that period of time. From Austin, I started putting together bulk orders of food to shelters in Romania. After some time, we extended that to shelters in some of the harder-hit areas of Ukraine like Bucha. But I came to Romania knowing that people back home were very motivated to help the Ukrainian people affected by the war. Many people just gave me money like “here’s a few hundred bucks, please use it.” After this first experience, I decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to see how far we could take this. It’s not really in my personality or background to get involved in these things. I’m not a marketer or social media guru. I’m far from that. But I learned how to do it and was eventually able to raise about $50,000 in March. Ultimately, I saw the need and all the support coming from the US, so I set up the platform to allow people to contribute directly.
I started receiving some letters and messages from people who had received some of the aid our crowdfunding had put together. But I noticed that all of the letters were addressed to me personally, just because of the way the platform had been set up. I really wasn’t comfortable with the attention, so I decided to set up an NGO with its own separate entity and separate bank account. That way, all of the aid we provide is under the banner of Direct Action Aid, which everyone can have some ownership in when making donations. I’m hoping that through this, our association can survive and actually grow to be able to continue supporting our Ukraine efforts. In the future, I’d also like to have this entity and the infrastructure behind it to be able to help people affected by the next global crisis, or the next local crisis.
Can you tell us more about some of the things you experienced or saw in Romania?
When I first got there, I noticed that basically everyone helping was a volunteer. People from all over the country and from other countries were using their own money and means to help however they could. Ten days into the trip, there was still no trace of all these billions of dollars of humanitarian aid that had been promised. I look at that… and I mean, that has been my business for over two decades, looking at government spending and contributions. There was nothing. Were there things going on behind the scenes that we couldn’t see? Definitely. But there was nothing happening overtly on the border on behalf of foreign governments. That’s why I had to go shopping and spend $500 on toothbrushes, for example. Eventually, the United Nations arrived at the border about a week into my trip, which was great. However, my point is that there is a gap between when a crisis starts and when foreign aid and more comprehensive solutions arrive. That is the piece of the puzzle that I was trying to directly impact.
The big personal connection for me was seeing videos of mothers fleeing the country by themselves, with their children in tow, often walking miles on end, to just arrive at a place where they didn’t even know what was going to happen. I thought about it more as “what would it be like if that was my wife and our children in her arms walking to Poland?” This changed my thinking a bit when I arrived there. I didn’t want to look at these people as a different group, or that I was an outsider. I was thinking about how it would be if that were my family and what they would need.
Once I arrived though, I started to become a bit in awe of the Romanian people and how gracious they were, offering their homes, offering transportation… and I’ve heard similar stories from other countries like Poland. The border area was just full of cars lined up with people driving from all over the country, just waiting to be able to help somebody. The volunteers at the border left their jobs and life back home to spend 16-hour days helping their neighbors. It was completely selfless behavior. I’m totally impressed by that. I think that disasters and crises can bring out the worst in people sometimes, but they also bring out the best in people, which is what I experienced there.
How would you like to see the greater EO community engage in supporting Ukraine?
First thing that comes to mind is to find or create opportunities to help in a sustainable way. A lot of the things that I have been doing are not sustainable. We raise money, we buy food, we deliver it. It’s a band-aid approach, albeit a very necessary one. But what happens next? Nobody wants to be on welfare. People want to have a life, and raise their kids and send them to school. In Ukraine specifically, I think it’s important to find ways to help businesses grow and prosper there. How can we help them generate their own income to be able to do some of the things we are doing now? I don’t think it should be about providing more money or supplies to shelters, sending more food, deodorant, toothbrushes, or things like that. We can work on a different level to help them set up the ecosystem that will bring more long-term and sustainable support. I’m happy with what I’ve done and with all of the great work I’ve seen others have done so far. We’ve worked to address the first step, the very basics that people need to live. But that’s not life. What comes next? What can we do to help people in Ukraine and those who fled abroad to actually create the life that they want? That’s one of the foundations of entrepreneurialism and I think EO is in a good position to be able to make a difference there.
