Saying ‘thank you’ to a stranger in a military uniform can be hard. So two women came up with the idea of letting a sticker do the job of expressing gratitude to Ukrainian soldiers risking their lives in defending the nation.
It simply says: “Thank you for what you do for me and our country.”
The volunteers suggest putting them on chocolate bars to give out to
soldiers. The light-brown sticker shows 12 people holding the letters.
“I
wanted to draw something that would be pleasant to hold in hands,”
artist Olena Sidko said. “Something that, when given to a soldier, would
pass on our warmth and gratitude.”
The idea caught on.
Sidkov’s
fellow volunteer, Anastasia Kuzmina, printed and gave away 1,000
stickers and is printing 1,000 more. She also shares the design with
people who want to print and distribute the stickers themselves. “I am
so happy people take the responsibility to print and distribute the
stickers. It means the idea is working,” Kuzmina said.
Kuzmina
says she’s been to the war zone and, as a volunteer, often talks to
soldiers on the phone and knows how they feel – that no one cares about
them.
“When riding a bus or walking the street you can’t say who
helps and who doesn’t,” she said. “What you do see though are the
indifferent glances.”
A week after Kuzmina first wrote about
the stickers on Facebook, more than 400 people shared her post and more
than 100 asked for stickers.
Olha Ohrimenko, 32, of Kyiv is
one of them. She plans to give them out to a departing soldier and to
other soldiers at the railway station. “I think it is best to help them
with money, but I am on maternity leave now, so I don’t always have
money and such stickers are a great idea,” she said.
Ohrimenko says she also personally thanks the soldiers, but sees that other people don’t.
“I hope the stickers will help with that,” she said. “After all, these people are giving their lives for us.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected]
