It started when I stopped for coffee at the Rotary International Convention in Houston. Rotarians are a friendly bunch from almost 200 countries, so when a couple of ladies asked if they could share my table, we naturally asked where each of us were from.
It was May 2022. The war in Ukraine had just begun three months earlier, and the ladies were doctors from Kharkiv, right on the front line. A week before she left for Houston, Russian missile hit her hospital, wiping out their ambulances. Then another missile struck an apartment building. I felt tears welling in my eyes as she told me how some of the people in the apartment building died because there were no ambulances to get them to her emergency room.
Yes, but what can one person do?
Those two Ukrainian Rotary members probably asked that a hundred times. I certainly have.
But as I walked back to my hotel that evening, I felt myself wondering, “I wonder how much an ambulance costs?
You see, whatever the cost, I knew I could not afford to buy an ambulance. But I knew I belonged to a wonderful little Rotary group called Medford Sunrise, and if they could get excited about the idea. . .
The Plan Comes Together
The answer: Around $18,000.
It didn’t make sense to buy an ambulance in the US. Shipping to Europe would be exorbitant. It would take a long time—and the need was urgent. And then the Ukrainians would have a vehicle with hard-to-get American parts.
We found a used ambulance dealer in Germany. But could he be trusted? Would the vehicle be a lemon?
Turns out there is a Rotary club in that little Germany town of Obernburg, and a 20-minute phone call to the club president resulted in his enthusiastic cooperation. “We have one member who is a mechanic, and he can check out the vehicle thoroughly,” he said. The next day he called back. “Our club meeting was last evening,” he said. “We have a member who is a pharmacist and he has offered to fill the entire ambulance with emergency medical supplies.”
And the plan was launched.
Medford Sunrise Rotary: People of Action
It took all of 10 minutes for the members of Medford Sunrise Rotary to endorse the plan. Members pledged to the campaign personally. Then one member—a guru with social media—launched the fundraising campaign.
Local newspapers—even the NBC News team came out to a meeting to cover the story. Donations–$10 from a lady in Tabernacle, $1,000 from a young man in California, even $20 from the piggy bank of a ten-year-old in Marlton who wanted to help “the little boys and girls in Ukraine.”
Germany. . . but then what?
We were collecting donations. We ordered the ambulance. But where to take it? Again, because Rotary is a global organization of people who—just those in Medford Sunrise—are committed to being people of action who come together to build friendships and serve their communities.
The Rotary Club of Lviv Unity said, “Yes! We absolutely can use as many medical supplies and certainly the ambulance. We can even help you get it across the border and we’ll drive it to the front lines.”
One Down, Five to Go
Medford Sunrise Rotary member Kevin Frenia, a CPA from Tabernacle and I bought our own tickets to fly to Frankfurt. A smiling Rotarian from the German club was waiting and an hour later, we arrived at the little town on the Rhine—and there was out ambulance, full of gas and filled to the ceiling with the type of medical supplies that trauma doctors need.
We set off on a two-day trek across Germany and Poland. People honked at us when they saw the large signs we had pasted to each side in English and Ukrainian: “This ambulance is donated with love by the people of the USA to the people of Ukraine through Medford Sunrise Rotary.”
But we weren’t done
The Ukrainian Rotarians told use how dire the need for ambulances was. The Russians were deliberately targeting hospitals, and their drones were attacking ambulances even as they carried patients to the hospitals.
Kevin said, “We can’t just say ‘mission accomplished’ and get on a plane and go home. We are, after all People of Action at Medford Sunrise Rotary.”
So we came home. We visited other Rotary clubs in New Jersey, Delaware, even South Carolina telling the story of how Rotarians see a problem and say, “How can we be a part of the solution?”
A month later, Medford Sunrise Rotary member Tom Monahan and I flew back to Germany and did it again. Three months later, we delivered another ambulance. Then another. Then another. And another.
Six ambulances all together. Each filled with medical supplies, firefighting equipment, hospital machines.
And What’s the Point?
The point, as I said at the beginning, is that we all care about innocent people suffering the tragedy in Ukraine.
And alone, we feel frustrated, because what can we do?
But when a couple of ordinary folks—a real estate agent, an insurance guy, a CPA, a nurse practitioner—in a Rotary Club like Medford Sunrise leverage their affiliation with other Rotary clubs in Germany, Ukraine, Holland, South Carolina, and so on, we can change the world.
An Email We Never Expected
Several months after we had delivered our third ambulance we received an email. It was from a soldier in Ukraine who had been shot while defending his country on the front line. They dragged him to an ambulance waiting nearby as a de facto trauma center.
You guessed. It was one of our ambulances. The young man was saved. He read the sign in Ukrainian, looked up our contact online, and wrote to tell us the difference Medford Sunrise Rotary had made to him.
Come See for Yourself — No Obligation
How about you? Wouldn’t you like to be part of a group of friends who network together to help those in need—whether it’s delivering meals to shut-ins on Thanksgiving to delivering ambulances to Ukraine?
Here’s our simple invitation: be our guest.
Come to one of our weekly breakfast meetings. Sit down with us. Meet the crew. Hear a speaker. See what a Rotary meeting actually looks and feels like in 2026. You’re not joining anything. You’re not obligated to anything. You’re just having breakfast with a group of people who love their community — and who just might become some of your favorite people.
To arrange a visit or ask any questions, reach out directly to our club president:
Sherry 📞 201.264.4740
Sherry will personally welcome you, tell you where and when we meet, and make sure you feel right at home from the moment you walk through the door.
Medford Sunrise Rotary Club serves members from Medford, Medford Lakes, Marlton, Lumberton, Tabernacle, Vincentown, Shamong, and surrounding communities in Burlington County, NJ. To learn more or attend a meeting as our guest, contact club president Sherry at 201.264.4740.