Utah County business among those trying to do ‘something, anything’ for Ukrainian refugees

LINDON, Utah — Watching the images and video on social media and television of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine, Marcella Hill couldn’t help but feel helpless and awful.

“Our hearts have been breaking over watching the news,” Hill said. “I think I’ve watched too much, spent too many hours just sitting in bed crying over it.”

So, as she walked through the warehouse of her business, Love Woolies — a producer of accessories made from repurposed wool sweaters — an idea came to her.

“Here, we have so many mittens just sitting here,” she thought. “How can we get them to Ukraine?”

That launched a plan to supply Ukrainian refugees with mittens and hats.

Initially, Hill said the company and its stay-at-home seamstresses will be sending the donated accessories to Europe through The Larry H. Miller Company’s “Driven to Assist” community donation drive.

The business, Hill said, will subsequently send discounted items purchased for donation through Love Woolies’ website to other organizations supplying humanitarian aid, including one based in New Jersey.

“We’ve heavily discounted our mittens so that people can donate them,” Hill said. “When you do that, you can leave a note and we will hand-write the note that goes with the mitten to the people in Ukraine.”

On Friday afternoon, several people were working in the warehouse to prep mittens materials for the seamstresses.

Holly Johnson brought her family and said she was heartened to see people coming together for a cause.

“It’s been really special actually,” Johnson said. “My kids — my little son and my daughters — it’s been fun watching them. We’ve been writing little letters and it was cute to see the heart that was going into the letters that my daughter was writing to these people that she’s never even met — to see that she was writing that she was praying about them and she made a pair of mittens for them or helped in some way in making those mittens and putting them together — it was really sweet to see.”

Driven to Assist locations were continuing to accept donations of needed items like diapers, feminine hygiene products, new coats and accessories through Saturday at multiple locations.

Hill grew emotional talking about the efforts Utahns were taking to help.

“Knowing they were going to Ukraine — that was much better being able to do something, anything,” Hill said. “It’s something — it’s what we can do.”