TIGARD, Ore. (KGW) — A Tigard man is back home after spending six months in Ukraine doing humanitarian work. Christopher Freisinger has been running food and supplies into the country, forfeiting his own safety to help Ukrainians in need during the ongoing war to push back Russia’s advances.
Freisinger left for Ukraine back in April and recently came back home to Tigard. He’s now about to return to Ukraine because the need is still there, he said.
“We take food in for roughly 35,000 people per week, is how many we feed,” Freisinger said. “We bring people out, we rescued over 29,000 since the start of the war.”
Freisinger has been working for an international organization called Kidsave. The main goal is to strengthen families and help orphans find families.
“We have a lot of safe houses and refugee centers,” Freisinger said. “Some of them are meant to move people through to other countries and areas, to wherever they’re wanting to go, and some are specifically for our orphans to provide psychological care, medical care.”
As Freisinger prepares to head back for the winter, needs are changing.
“Right now the need throughout the winter is for sure going to be power generators, wood and cooking stoves even single little rocket burner stoves that can be manufactured quickly and cheaply.”
Freisinger has a family of his own and risked his life to go to Ukraine to help out. He has a background in law enforcement and software engineering. He said that he wanted to use all his skills to make a difference, but it’s been a dangerous experience.
“I’ve been in areas actively getting shelled or (that) had just been shelled,” Freisinger said. “I’ve seen missiles flying over head from the Black Sea more than a couple of times.”
If people want to donate to Kidsave they can go here.
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