CAPE MAY – A fundraiser to provide and deliver critically needed, non-lethal equipment and supplies to the frontlines of Ukraine is planned for 1-3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, at The Inn of Cape May Hotel, 7 Ocean Street.
The event is sponsored by Team DOKO, the Daughters of Knyahynya Olha, a small but impactful group of women from New Jersey who have been delivering strategic non-lethal aid to Ukraine’s defenders since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The cost is $25 per person at the door, and includes a cash bar, light lunch menu available for self pay, complimentary gifts and desserts, guest speakers, a silent auction and raffle, and a concert pianist.
“Our historic figurehead, the ancient ruler Olha of Kyiv, was renowned for her brilliant military strategies and social innovations. Following in the footsteps of our ancestors and Olha, DOKO works to preserve Ukraine, its people, its heritage and its military,” said Xenia Cox, founder of DOKO, who just returned three weeks ago from Ukraine.
“We are first-generation Ukrainian-Americans raised in the historic and cultural traditions of our predecessors,” she said. “We share a deep, life-long activism and commitment to preserving freedom and justice for the people of Ukraine and the world.
“Ukraine will cease without military aid, and they are the defense frontlines of the free world today,” she added. “If Ukraine loses, we all lose.”
Cox will be one of the speakers at the event, sharing highlights from her recent trips.
Laura Bell, concert pianist, will perform a mini-concert of music by Ukrainian composers at the event. In attendance will also be a priest from the Ukrainian community in Vineland.
According to Deborah Pangle, of Villas, who is helping to organize the event, “it’s the power of people coming together for a shared cause” that invigorates and inspires her and others. “If Ukraine loses, democracy loses, so everything we can do to help them is critical,” she said.
DOKO’s focus is the Red Zone, according to Cox. “We report directly to a Ukrainian general for maximum impact on the front lines. We focus on two areas. One is that we answer any call for medical equipment, uniforms, and boots, evacuation equipment when an injured soldier can’t be evacuated from the frontlines, heaters for the soldiers, etc. Second, we have a roster of the best of the best, experts in their fields to help identify what is needed or what processes need to be put in place.”
On her recent trip, Cox said she was with the 73rd Naval Special Operations Center, a special forces unit within the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces. This unit is a naval special operations force that specializes in amphibious reconnaissance, maritime counterterrorism, and other special warfare operations, including river and sea missions, reconnaissance, and direct action.
“They asked us to replace their boots,” she said. “They use the same boots as the U.S. Seals, but they can’t get them there. I came home with the sizes for 60 pairs of boots to bring back. They asked for heaters, and we were able to deliver solar generators, which not only provide the warmth they need but are environmentally sound. It’s a win-win.”
Cox and others from DOKO are all volunteers who use their own money to travel to Ukraine. “You name it, we can do it,” she said. “We just delivered a quad from Pennsylvania to rescue the critically wounded who can’t make it out on their own. I’ve been within 800 meters (about 1/2 mile) of the Russians. We are our own quiet storm with a deep connection to the Cape May community.”
Cox summered at the shore since a child in 1961, and was married on the steps of the Virginia Hotel shortly after it opened, by the city’s mayor. Her family had a home in Diamond Beach until they sold it in 2019. She lived in the community until 2015, when she joined Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Education. She recently retired from there.
Cox said that by going to the frontline, she and others bring “hope and joy” to the soldiers. Prior to 2022, there were about 60,000 men in the Ukrainian Army, who then went through “a rough time” as many civilians joined to match the “millions of the Russian Army. They’ve lost 90% of their medics, and can’t uptrain the soldiers fast enough.
“When you meet the Ukrainian soldiers, they are the most humane, emotionally accessible human beings,” she noted. “They are vulnerable. But when they get the call to the front lines, they turn into the most professional special forces you can have.
“Fragments of Ukraine: Five Stories of the DIY Supply Chain,” which followed Cox and Michael Nigro’s travels through Ukraine during May and June of 2023, won an EPPY and the LA Press Club Award last year.
DOKO is a 501(c)3 charitable organization and all donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
