Our Story

My name is Gwyn, and I visited Ukraine in 1993, back when I was a college student. I spent three transformative weeks there, and fell in love with the country, the people, the food, and the land. I turned 21 while I was there, and my Ukrainian friends gave me a traditional wreath of flowers for my hair, known in Ukrainian as a Vinok.

In the three decades since, I have had a wonderful life, pursuing activities and careers in equity, creative education, public libraries, and now supporting independent bookstores in the US. But part of my heart has always remained in Ukraine, and when the full-scale invasion broke out in 2022, I felt the pull even stronger.

I knew I needed to go back and support Ukraine in a meaningful way, and I wanted to connect my business to the work there.

I visited Lviv in August 2025, and volunteered with a community of Ukrainians and internationals – people coming there from all over the world for a week or a month or a year or more to offer what they could. They cook in community kitchens, run refugee housing, weave camouflage netting, collect and send supplies of all sorts to the front line, help evacuate and relocate internally displaced people, and provide mental health support to people of all ages. The work is inspiring and fulfilling.

While I was there, I worked in the kitchens, wove the nets, painted a mural at a refugee house, purchased my first selection of books and educational supplies, and delivered them to two local organizations who were teaching English to kids. And the idea of an ongoing English free-bookstore took shape.

Volunteers have already lined up to help catalog the materials, identify recipient organizations, and even make the deliveries. I have also been offered free warehouse space to house the store. Now we are simply putting the pieces together.

My company will cover all the overhead and a bulk of the purchases, but your support can increase our impact, directly reaching kids of all ages who are growing up in truly nightmarish times. Every shipment we send will go to vetted Ukrainian organizations who are supporting these kids and helping them create an engaged, hopeful future for themselves.

And as we work and develop, we will continue to evolve to improve our support of these children, learning and growing along with them. Please join us.