Good Deeds Day took place in Ukraine: volunteers, Jewish communities, and good deeds in 27 cities of Ukraine

In Ukraine, Good Deeds Day has become more than just a volunteer event. In a country where war too often brings smoke, sirens, and darkness, people have decided to become a light for each other. In 27 cities, volunteers helped the elderly, children, people with disabilities, displaced persons, animals, and Jewish communities.

Good Deeds Day Ukraine: goodness was not canceled even by sirens

Good Deeds Day Ukraine this year became a story not only about volunteering. It is a story about a country where the sky is too often covered with smoke, but people still find the strength to become the sun for each other.

From April 10 to 30, events of the “Good Deeds Day” took place in Ukraine, reported Good Deeds Day Ukraine on May 9, 2026. Formally, it was a volunteer event. In essence, it was a large human marathon where kindness became not a beautiful slogan but a concrete action: bake bread, deliver food, help an elderly person contact relatives, conduct a master class for a child in a hospital, clean a Jewish cemetery, feed an animal, plant a tree in a city living under the threat of attacks.

Good Deeds Day is an international initiative with Israeli roots. It was created in Israel and over time became a global movement joined by volunteers, schools, communities, foundations, businesses, and ordinary people in different countries. But in Ukraine, this idea has acquired a special meaning.

Here, good was done not in a peaceful environment. It was done during the war.

That is why the Ukrainian event resonates so strongly with the Israeli audience. Israel knows well what life under threat, sirens, anxiety, public mobilization, and help that often comes faster than official mechanisms are like. Ukraine today is going through its harsh reality, and in this reality, volunteers, including Jewish organizations and communities, have become part of a large system of human support.

33 centers, 27 cities, and 1475 volunteers

The scale of Good Deeds Day Ukraine turned out to be significant: 33 volunteer centers in 27 cities of Ukraine, 1475 volunteers, and 844 events.

Behind these numbers is not just a report. It is almost one and a half thousand people who did not give up. In a country where war has changed everyday life, they continued to do what at first glance may seem “small”: cooking, cleaning, visiting, supporting, delivering, explaining, repairing, feeding, listening.

But it is precisely from such “small” actions that the resilience of society is built.

One of the strongest episodes happened in Mykolaiv. In a small community kitchen, volunteers were baking festive challahs. The smell of yeast dough, an electric oven — and sudden darkness. The power was cut off three times while people tried to finish the job.

They literally caught every moment when the electricity returned to make sure the challahs were baked. In the silence interrupted by sirens, volunteers continued to wait, turn on the oven, check the dough, and start again.

“It was terrible… but the challahs were born!” — this is how the participants recalled it.

Then this bread was given to lonely people and displaced persons. And in this episode lies the essence of the event: when it is dark around, someone still bakes bread for another person.

Elderly people: not just help, but a return to connection with the world

For 1446 elderly people, the Good Deeds Day Ukraine marathon became a real bridge to life. Not metaphorically, but very practically.

In Kryvyi Rih, volunteers launched the “Not a Glass of Water” campaign. The name speaks for itself: it’s not about minimal help “for show,” but about attention that truly warms a person. As part of this initiative, 149 elderly people received support. They were given 300 pairs of warm socks, knitted with love. Someone might say: socks are a trifle. But for a lonely elderly person in winter, in a troubled city, in conditions of war and domestic instability, such a “trifle” becomes a sign: you are remembered.

In Odesa, teenagers together with their parents prepared cherry dumplings and matzo muffins to take them to a Jewish home for the elderly. Here, not only the treat itself is important. It is important that children and parents together engaged in helping the older generation, and the Jewish tradition became part of a living volunteer action.

In Sumy, volunteers helped elderly people set up gadgets to connect with relatives. It might seem like technical assistance: phone, messenger, call, contact. But during the war, this can be the most important window to the world.

When relatives have scattered, when part of the families are in other cities or countries, when anxiety has become part of the day, the ability to see a loved one’s face on the screen ceases to be a convenience. It becomes support that keeps a person afloat.

Children, hospitals, and people with disabilities: dignity instead of pity

For 906 children, volunteers created a space where there was no room for worries, even for a while.

This is especially important for Ukraine, where children learn too early what an air raid, shelter, destroyed home, waiting for news, and adult conversations about war are.

In Dnipro, little hands painted gingerbread. In Kyiv, in hospitals, including Okhmatdyt, children at master classes were distracted from drips, procedures, and medical regimes. For a short time, the focus was not on illness or fear, but on creativity.

In Khmelnytskyi, children with disabilities became the main heroes of the culinary “School of Life.” They prepared cakes and treats, participated in the process, saw the results of their efforts, and felt not like objects of care, but full participants in a common cause.

In total, the marathon of good deeds covered 282 people with disabilities. And here it is very important that this help is not described as pity. This is a story about dignity, inclusion, and the right of a person to be at the center of community life, not on its periphery.

NANews —Israel News | Nikk.Agency notes that it is these details that make Good Deeds Day Ukraine an important story for Israel and the Jewish audience. It is not only a story about helping Ukraine. It is an example of how an international initiative with Israeli roots, Ukrainian volunteers, Jewish communities, and local partners together create a network of support where war tries to break human connections.

When volunteering needs to be fast

During the war, volunteering changes its rhythm. It cannot always be calm, pre-planned, and beautiful. Sometimes it needs to be fast.

In Konotop, volunteers worked in an animal shelter while the city was under threat. They tried to manage to give affection to anxious dogs, feed them, help them before having to run to shelter.

This is an important detail. War affects not only people. Animals also remain in the zone of fear, noise, evacuations, and destruction. As part of the event, 1387 animals received food and care.

In Zaporizhzhia, volunteers cleaned the community area immediately after a “hit.” This is no longer just cleaning. It is an attempt to restore the human appearance of a place after a strike, to clean not only the land but also the sense of home from traces of destruction. For people living in such conditions, the community becomes a second home. And when this home is affected by war, it is cleaned not because “it is supposed to be,” but because it cannot be otherwise.

Numbers behind which stand people

The organizers of Good Deeds Day Ukraine provided numbers, and each of them shows a separate layer of help.

• 934 hot meals were received by people whose homes might have been cold, empty, or simply lacked the strength to cook.
• 209 quality food packages were collected and delivered to elderly people and large families in the regions.
• 2820 kg of garbage was collected by volunteers, with a significant part of this work taking place as part of cleaning Jewish cemeteries.
• 1387 animals received food and care.
• 147 partners supported the event.

It is worth mentioning Jewish cemeteries separately. For Jewish tradition, memory is not a decorative theme. Caring for burial sites means respect for the past, for communities, for people whose stories should not disappear under garbage, grass, and traces of oblivion.

During the war, such work acquires another meaning. When destruction becomes part of the news, cleaning a cemetery, preserving memory, and caring for places of Jewish history become a quiet but very strong gesture of resistance to chaos.

Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy: flowers as faith in the future

In Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy, volunteers went out to plant flowers and trees. It may seem almost naive against the backdrop of war. But that is precisely why such a gesture is important.

Planting a tree in a city living under threat means believing that it will have a future. Planting flowers means saying that life is not limited to worries, news, and destruction.

People who plant plants during the war do more than landscaping. They return the horizon to the city. They act as if they will definitely see the blooming. And this faith itself becomes a form of social strength.

Why helping Ukraine is not just politics

Good Deeds Day Ukraine shows an important thing: helping Ukraine during the war is not just about weapons, diplomacy, sanctions, negotiations, or statements. All this is important, but there is another front — the human one.

On this front, volunteers, charitable organizations, Jewish communities, international initiatives, local partners, teenagers, parents, doctors, teachers, activists, businesses, and just people who do not want to remain observers work.

Jewish organizations and communities in Ukraine play a special role in such conditions. They help not only “their own,” but often become part of a broad Ukrainian system of mutual assistance. This is fundamentally important: the community does not close itself off from the country in which it lives, but participates in its resilience.

The Israeli audience should understand this especially well. In times of crisis, society is held together not only by institutions but also by horizontal connections. By people who know whom to bring food to. By teenagers who are ready to cook for the elderly. By volunteers who go to animals. By those who come to the hospital to children. By those who clean the cemetery because memory also needs protection.

Good Deeds Day Ukraine has become not a quiet haven of kindness, but a real storm against indifference. It showed that goodness during war does not look soft or weak. Sometimes it is very stubborn.

It bakes challahs during power outages.

It brings matzo and dumplings to the elderly.

It sets up a phone for a lonely grandmother.

It helps a child in a hospital forget about the drip for at least an hour.

It cleans up traces of destruction after a strike.

It feeds a dog that is also afraid of sirens.

It plants a tree in a city that wants to live.

That is why this story goes far beyond a single volunteer report. It shows how Ukraine during the war continues to remain a society where human dignity has not become a secondary topic. And international initiatives with Israeli roots, Jewish communities, and Ukrainian volunteers help hold this fabric of life when the enemy tries to tear it apart.

As long as people hold on to each other and bring quality changes to homes, communities, and hearts through good deeds, darkness truly does not get a chance to have the last word.