(Courtesy photo)
Santa Barbara-based Yardi has made a $100,000 contribution to support ShelterBox’s response to the crisis in Ukraine. Santa Barbara-based ShelterBox USA is a global disaster relief organization.
Yardi, a provider of real estate and property management software, is headquartered in Santa Barbara and has offices around the world, including Eastern Europe.
For more than 20 years, ShelterBox has provided shelter and other essential items to the most vulnerable forced from their homes by disaster and conflict. It is currently responding to the crisis in Ukraine, setting up multiple relief programs both inside and outside Ukraine, to help the 3.5 million-plus refugees who have fled Ukraine, and the millions who remain internally displaced within the country.
ShelterBox USA president Kerri Murray recently traveled to Poland’s border with Ukraine and met with refugees.
“ShelterBox USA is deeply grateful for Yardi’s contribution,” Murray said. “This charitable support will enable us to deliver critical relief supplies to Ukrainians who need them most.
“When I was working in Poland on the Ukraine border, I met with women and children who had to travel for days by foot, bus, and train flee the violence, many of whom had to leave members of their family behind to fight,” she said. “Yardi’s support is critical to helping us provide essential aid to those families.”
“Yardi values our long-term partnership with ShelterBox, a fellow Santa Barbara organization with a strong commitment and proven track record for assistance in disaster relief around the world,” said Arnie Brier, Yardi senior vice president. “We are reassured to see ShelterBox involved in supporting Ukrainian refugees during this devastating crisis.”
ShelterBox provides humanitarian aid in the form of family-sized tents and essential tools to start repairing and rebuilding homes. The organization’s kits and boxes are tailored to each response, frequently including items such as cooking sets, solar lights, blankets, water filters, and activity sets for children.
ShelterBox is currently undertaking a major response to the crisis in Ukraine, working around the clock to set up programs for refugees, as well as those displaced within Ukraine. It will include sending thousands of mattresses to collective centers like schools, churches, and sports centers, as well as thermal blankets, hygiene kits, solar lights, and water carriers.
ShelterBox has responded in Ukraine twice previously, in 2003 and 2008, and has experience in protracted conflict zones, including 10 years of work in Syria. It has deployed to disasters like the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and it launched its largest response to date in the Philippines after Typhoon Rai last December.