Leleka Foundation

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Leleka Foundation

Leleka Foundation is a US- and Ukraine-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with 10 years of experience.

Leleka Foundation specializes in delivering high-quality emergency medical supplies to field medics on the frontlines. Leleka Foundation is a US-based charity registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. We have been helping Ukraine with essential medical supplies since 2014. Leleka Foundation focuses on helping save as many lives of war casualties in Ukraine as efficiently and as quickly as possible. It`s a team of Ukrainians living in the USA, Europe, and Ukraine. Our Ukrainian 12-person team is organized as a charity Leleka Ukraine headed by Iryna Guk. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, we have scaled up programs to support Ukrainian medics working on the frontline and treating war casualties, both civilians and troops. Since that time, we have received 6,000+ applications and successfully processed 5,000+. We’ve built an extensive network consisting of 4,000+ medics, serving at the front, and saving lives every day. We have raised over $12 million, which has paid for 10,000+ medic backpacks, 50+ medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) vehicles, 120+ drone-protection systems for such vehicles, and sophisticated and essential equipment for hospitals. You can read more about Leleka Foundation at https://www.leleka.care/.

10/15/2026

Borshch That Helps Save Lives 🇺🇦 🥣

Dear friends of Leleka in DC and the DMV, it’s time to gather over bowls of borshch again!

Come taste borshch made by local cooks, vote for the best borshch chef in the DMV this year, and help raise money for Leleka ❤️

Every dollar goes to Leleka’s campaign for tourniquets and thermal blankets. Some of the thermal blankets will go to emergency services in Kyiv, the crews who save people injured in Russian attacks, often in the ruins of their own homes.

📅 Saturday, October 17, 5pm
📍 401 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20001, on the rooftop
🧥 Bring a jacket, it gets chilly up there!

💛 Entry is by donation
Minimum: $35
Recommended: $60
Maximum: the sky’s the limit

👉 Space on the rooftop is limited, so reserve your spot now. The link is in the comments 👇

Tag a friend who loves good borshch, and share this post so more of the DMV can join us 🙌

10/14/2026

Flowers Beyond the Dark: A Story from Liberated Kyiv Region Comes to LA

📅 October 18
📍 Ukrainian Culture Center - UCC, Los Angeles

At Leleka, we deliver medical supplies to the front line. But we also believe in another kind of support: telling the truth about this war. That’s why this isn’t the first time we’ve stood behind Flowers Beyond the Dark, and why we’re proud to support it again at the 2nd Annual Ukrainian Film Festival in Los Angeles.

The documentary was filmed in the spring of 2022, just after Ukraine’s army pushed Russian forces out of the Kyiv region. It brings together the evidence, emotions, and firsthand testimony of people who lived through those weeks:

⛪ a priest from Bucha
🎨 two artists from Kyiv
🪖 soldiers of the 72nd Brigade

The film’s producer, Yulia Zi, puts it this way:

“Now, almost five years into the full-scale invasion, when Ukraine is hard to keep in American headlines, it’s critical to show the truth and keep engaging American audiences through Ukrainian cinema.”

We see this every day. The medics we supply are still on the front line, still saving lives, while the war slips further from the news here. Films like this one carry the truth into rooms the headlines no longer reach. And when people remember, they keep helping.

Here’s how you can help keep Ukraine’s story on screen:

🎟 Get your ticket and join us on October 18: https://waylight.me/ukrainianculturecenterla/event/cb8c9-701f1
👥 Bring a friend, especially someone who hasn’t followed the war closely
🔁 Share this post with your LA friends and community groups

One evening, one film, one more person who sees the truth. That’s how Ukraine stays in the conversation.

10/13/2026

Where did your donations go in August? Here’s the full picture.

At Leleka, reporting isn’t a formality. You trust us with your support, and you deserve to see exactly what it became. So every month, we show you.

In August, $216,222 worth of tactical medical supplies reached frontline medics in Ukraine:

🎒 350 medical backpacks
🩸 2,514 tourniquets
🛏 434 stretchers
🫁 2,336 chest seals
➕ 19,932 other medical devices

That’s more than 25,000 items. Each one is in a medic’s hands right now, ready for the moment when seconds decide whether a soldier makes it home.

Thank you for standing with us. We’ll keep showing you every step of the way.

Support Leleka, find the details in the comments.

10/12/2026

From Antarctica to the front line

On Saturday, October 17, at 3:00 PM, the 2nd Ukrainian Film Festival in Los Angeles will screen on Antarctica, a documentary by Ukrainian traveler and filmmaker Anton Ptushkin.

The film takes you to Akademik Vernadsky, Ukraine's research station at the edge of the world. You'll cross the rough Drake Passage aboard the icebreaker Noosfera, see how Ukrainian polar explorers live and work, and meet the wild Antarctic: glaciers, penguins, and whales.

For Leleka, this story is personal. Our co-founder Svitlana Kostylova has been to Vernadsky station herself, and she brought back something special.

At the Leleka stand during the festival, you'll find:
✉️ Unique postcards and photos signed by the scientists at the station
🎒 A one-of-a-kind backpack from Antarctica

Every purchase supports our mission. One backpack from Antarctica can help save dozens of lives on Ukraine's front line.

Come for the film, stay for the story, and stop by our stand. Find the details in the comments.

📅 Saturday, October 17, 3:00 PM
📍 Ukrainian Culture Center, Los Angeles

10/09/2026

Leleka is proud to partner with the 2nd Annual Ukrainian Film Festival in Los Angeles!

Our work doesn't end with medical supplies for the front. We also want the world to see and understand Ukraine: its history, its culture, and the resilience of its people. Film tells that story in ways the news alone cannot.

📅 October 17–18
📍 Ukrainian Culture Center, Los Angeles

This year's theme, "Frames of Freedom," shows how cinema can do more than record Ukraine's fight for freedom. It also captures the courage, strength, and love behind it.

Two days, eight films, and conversations with directors and producers:

🎞 Saturday, Oct 17
Dovbush · Antarctica · U Are the Universe
Plus opening remarks and a reception at 5:00 PM

🎞 Sunday, Oct 18
Home. A Place of Strength · Cuba & Alaska · Flowers Beyond the Dark · Kobzarka · Soldiers of Song
With Q&As featuring producer Yulia Zimmermann, director Gladden Rangel, singer Inna Ishchenko, and director Ryan Smith

The festival is organized by UNWLA, Branch 111, Los Angeles, CA, the Ukrainian Art Center Los Angeles, and the Ukrainian Culture Center - UCC.

If you're in LA, come spend a weekend with Ukrainian stories on the big screen. Find the details in the comments.

10/07/2026

💔 Russia launched another combined attack on Ukraine, striking Kyiv and the Kyiv region, as well as the Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, and Poltava regions. At least 19 people have been killed and more than 58 injured so far.

The loss is especially painful in Pryluky, where 13 people were killed, including 4 children, and more than 50 were injured. Rescuers and police are still searching through the rubble of a five-story residential building for people who may be trapped underneath.

🕯️ Our hearts are with every family who lost someone today. Eternal memory to those killed, and strength and recovery to everyone who was injured.

Please keep Ukraine in your thoughts, share what is happening, and continue to stand with Ukrainians.

10/05/2026

Leleka`s President spent a whole Sunday frying syrnyky. Those syrnyky raised $1,000 for frontline medics.

Vadim Geshel runs Leleka Foundation, and he also makes the best syrnyky in the Bay Area, and anyone who has visited him knows it.

His mother taught him how to make the farm cheese and syrnyky, and he has been refining her recipe ever since.

This summer in Kyiv, Vadim ate a very good plate of syrnyky, and back home he spent some time working out how to reproduce them. He messaged Iryna, half in jest: we should do a pop-up. She said yes.

Vadim made six kilograms of cheese over a week, then spent an entire Sunday at the stove. At the café's pre-opening, he served about 60 portions at $30 each. By his own account, he was exhausted.

The evening raised $1,000 for frontline medics, and 60 people spent it hearing about the medics they were supporting.

Thank you, Iryna, and thank you to everyone who came. ❤️

We're talking with Franco & Friends about a Giving Tuesday event, so stay tuned, Bay Area.

🧀 Vadim's cheese, for anyone who wants to try

You can't buy the right farm cheese for syrnyky in an American supermarket, thus you need to make it by yoursel.

Combine a gallon of whole milk and a large jar of plain Greek yogurt in a pot over the lowest heat your stove can manage. Stir occasionally. After an hour to an hour and a half, the curds will separate and the whey will run clear. Wait for it to turn completely clear, because that's when you get the most cheese. Strain it through a fine metal sieve, refrigerate overnight, and in the morning you have cheese.

Then follow two secrets from Vadim: keep the cheese fairly dry, and make sure the pan is properly hot. A pan that isn't ready is why most syrnyky spread or stick.

Tried it? Show us your syrnyky in the comments 👇

10/01/2026

Today is October 1 — the Day of Defenders of Ukraine.
Thank you.

Thank you to the people holding the line since 2014, when Russia first attacked Ukraine.

To the ones who went to defend it and never came out.
To the ones who are cold right now, in a position, listening for a drone.

To the families who let them go, and to the families who are still waiting for someone who won't come home.

And thank you to the medics.

You are the reason this day has survivors in it. You run toward the sound everyone else runs from.

You work in tree lines and basements and the back of a moving vehicle, with cold hands and no light, on someone you may know by name.

You keep a life in place for the ten minutes it takes to reach the next set of hands — and you do it again the next day, and the next.

Some of you don't come back either. We know that. We carry those names too.

Everything Leleka does exists for those ten minutes.
To Ukraine's defenders — захисникам і захисницям — thank you.

To the medics who bring them home—thank you.
Slava Ukraini!

09/28/2026

Leleka Foundation has been honored at the Order of St. Panteleimon. Foreign Council USA Gala 2026 with the Certificate of Merit for outstanding humanitarian contribution and service.

The recognition came from the Foreign Council USA of the Order of Saint Panteleimon — Ukraine's highest civil award for achievements in healthcare, named for the patron saint of physicians.

Our co-founder and board member Svitlana Kostylova, who had returned from Ukraine days earlier, accepted it together with Iryna Solomko, our Head of Strategic Communications.

"This summer the front line moved to Kyiv, and not as a figure of speech," Svitlana told the room.

"A soldier at the front has a helmet and a plate carrier and a weapon he can fire back with. A woman in a Kyiv apartment at three in the morning has a hallway wall and whatever she has learned about how to stop bleeding.

That is the gap we work in."

The need has widened along with the war. Strikes on Kyiv and other cities have intensified through 2026, leaving civilians, emergency services and ambulance crews exposed in ways tactical medicine was never built to address.

"This award is not ours," Iryna said in accepting it. "It belongs to our supporters, and above all it belongs to the medics. Everything we do, we do so that they can save a life — there isn't a second part to the mission.

They are the ones who should be standing here. They can't. They're working."

Thank you to everyone who made this possible.

Special thanks to Tetiana Tymkiv for her hard work in bringing this award to the US.
🤍

09/25/2026

One more packed backpack, one more pair of hands we trust.

This one went to Olha — she runs the medical post of the 31st Brigade of Ukraine's National Guard. Such a job means not only does she treat the wounded herself, but also decides what her medics carry, what gets restocked, and what must be ready before anyone knows they'll need it.

Tourniquets, chest seals, hemostatics — everything a medic reaches for when there's no time to think. Each of these is packed by hand at our Kyiv warehouse. Now Olha has one more packed backpack.

To everyone who made it possible — thank you. The next ones are already being packed.

Support Leleka, find the details in the comments.

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Palo Alto, CA

Website

https://leleka.care/

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