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Kentucky family with two Ukrainian daughters plan humanitarian trip to help refugees

Kasey & James Perry adopted Daisy in 2017 and Lily in 2020. Now, the family is planning a trip to Poland to provide Ukrainian refugees with medical supplies, food.

VINE GROVE, Ky. — Across Kentuckiana, there's been an outpouring of support shown to Ukrainians following Russia's invasion. 

Many groups are working to find ways to donate and help refugees, including the more than 2.3 million Ukrainian citizens who have fled to Poland.

One Hardin County family is looking to help refugees by planning to take humanitarian aid overseas.

Members of the Perry family will be traveling to Poland on April 11 to help the country that gifted them two daughters in the last five years.

Kasey & James Perry adopted Daisy in 2017 and Lily in 2020, both from Ukraine. Kasey said getting to be their mom has been one of her greatest joys. 

"My friend had sent me a blog about special needs orphans in Ukraine, and it just broke our hearts," she said. "A lot of the orphans with disabilities don't receive the medical care that they would if they were born under another flag."

RELATED: Talks resume as Ukraine denies hitting fuel depot on Russian soil

Now, the family is trying to give back to the country, planning a trip to Poland to provide medical supplies and food for those who've fled there.

"My daughters are Ukrainian and being adopted doesn't erase that part of their history and their identity, so it was important to us as a family to embrace their culture and to help in any way we can," Kasey said.

She said her son, 17-year-old Mason, and husband will be taking medical supplies, like trauma kits, to Poland to help. 

They're also accepting donations and are currently fundraising to buy food to give out once they arrive.

"Not knowing if they're going to make it to the next week, it's been pushing strongly on me," Mason said.

Photos and videos sent to us by the family show just some of the efforts made by a friend of the theirs -- also with a Ukrainian child -- who has been in Poland over the last two weeks. A group brought suitcases full of equipment, even a ventilator, and bought other supplies and food items there.

The group is also making further connections in the country, in order for the Perry family to come in and quickly meet the needs of refugees who've lost so much.

To help donate to the group, click here. To help out the Perry family with raising funds to donate medical supplies, click here.

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