Prosthetic Clinics:
We now have five 3D printers making below knee prosthetic sockets in Ukraine, donated by our Mission, at these institutions:
- Transcarpathian Regional Clinic Hospital (TRCH) in Uzhhorod (550 beds, 18,000 patients p.a.)
- “Unbroken” – Part of the First Medical Association of Lviv
- “Superhumans” – Superhumans Clinic in Lviv
- State Prosthetic & Orthopedic Enterprise (VinProtez) in Vinnytsia
- P.L. Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine in Kyiv
In Ukraine, the need for prosthetics is immense, with an estimated (ca. 2024) 40,000 below knee amputees (men, women and children). It is also estimated that only about 600 new prosthetic devices were made in 2024 in all of Ukraine. Both Unbroken and Superhumans were established in 2022.
Background:
Our Mission partnered with Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and Texas Children’s Hospital (TCH) – both based in Houston, Texas – over the past three years and, among other efforts, opened a clinic for prosthetic 3D manufacture, fitting and rehabilitation at our partner hospital, TRCH. Our other partners are Filaments Innovation (Allentown, PA – now owned by Proteor, a private, French prosthetics company) and Invent Medical (Ostrava, Czechia). TRCH has completely renovated two areas to accommodate the prosthetic 3D printing and fitting and, with donations from Direct Aid (Austin, TX) [http://directaidforukraine.org/what-we-do], a modern rehabilitation facility was created.
In June 2024, our Mission purchased (>$40,000) and shipped a 3D “Icarus” printer from Pennsylvania to Invent Medical and they tested and fine-tuned their proprietary software for scanning limbs and proper fitting. Importantly, working with Mitsubishi Chemicals and Filaments Innovation, improvements were made to the plastic filament material used to create the socket. Further, BCM selected Bulldog Tools (Ohio) to provide the internal and below socket parts: liner, hardware and foot. Our Mission for Ukraine purchased and shipped to Ukraine most of the ancillary equipment. We also funded the training of TRCH’s technicians and rehabilitation staff at Invent Medical in September, 2024. In October 2024, we shipped the 3D printer from Ostrava, Czechia to TRCH in Uzhhorod. In November 2024, the first below knee socket was made by our 3D printer at TRCH and fitted on a patient that day. Our Mission also hired a US volunteer to live in Uzhhorod who was instrumental in coordinating the many stakeholders and was the hub of the information and decision flow. In June 2025, after fitting 27 patients with the 3D prosthetic sockets at TRCH, BCM declared our pilot project a “success.” With this milestone achieved, Mission for Ukraine and Proteor planned to expand to other clinics and hospitals in Ukraine, and this led to four more printers in western Ukraine.
Our 3D printers in Ukraine can produce a “socket” in two hours. Other 3D printers require around 18 to 24 hours. The entire process to scan, 3D print and fit a patient with a new prosthetic leg is about four hours; whereas, the traditional method, using plaster molds, can take several days. The total cost for a new prosthetic made by our 3D printer, with all the parts, is about $400 per patient, or a fraction of existing prosthetic methods, which cost between $8,000 to $15,000. The main competitor 3D printer costs over $800,000. Proteor’s new “Icarus Lite” 3D printer costs $25,000 and is half the size and weight of the first “Icarus” printer we shipped to Ukraine in June 2024. This development will enable our Mission to purchase twice as many printers as before for use in Ukraine.
We purchased our first “Icarus Lite” printer in September 2025 and drove it across the border to Vinnytsia, Ukraine where it is now being used at the state prosthetics institution there. In October 2025, our Mission also signed an MOU with Proteor Printing Solutions (USA) to purchase four more “Icarus Lite” printers ($25k each) and for each printer we buy, Proteor will donate $5,000 worth of supplies and equipment, provide one week of training for the clinicians on the “Icarus Lite” 3D printer and, importantly, provide access to Proteor’s highly specialized software to assist in the manufacture of the 3D products (e.g. scanning of the amputated limb is now done with a mobile phone). Under the MOU, we purchased a Lite printer in December 2025 and donated it to “Unbroken,” a world class prosthetics clinic in Lviv (https://unbroken.org.ua). The results have been amazing and the patients much prefer the flexible sockets made with the Icarus Lite. Unbroken published this:
Thanks to the support of PROTEOR Print and Mission for Ukraine, our prosthetics team received an Icarus Lite industrial-grade 3D printer designed specifically for prosthetic socket production. The new equipment has doubled production efficiency while improving the strength and quality of printed components. In 2026 the first month alone, our team produced approximately 30 sockets and continues to work closely with the developers to further optimize 3D-printing solutions for our patients.
Unbroken is also using 3D technology to make “assisted devices” for hand and arm amputations. Proteor and Unbroken plan to establish a “Center of Excellence” at Unbroken. Our Mission’s objective is to continue to expand 3D printing technology to other parts of Ukraine, beyond the current five locations.
The Military Hospital in Mukachevo, Ukraine (40 kms from Uzhhorod) has been sending patients to the TRCH clinic for below knee prosthetics. Patients are scanned at the Military Hospital, the socket is printed in Uzhhorod and the TRCH team fits the new prosthetic leg at the Military Hospital. The veterans do not have to travel to receive a new prosthetic and the Military Hospital has a new, modern rehab facility.
New Ophthalmology Clinic:
TRCH will open a new ophthalmology clinic (from “scratch”) as part of the hospital. A highly trained and qualified Ukrainian doctor was recently hired to manage this process and open the clinic. With drone warfare, we are told eye injures have increased dramatically. Our Mission is working with Dr. Tim Stout, Chair of the Ophthalmology Dept. at BCM – and acting his personal capacity – to build and equip this new ophthalmology clinic. Dr. Stout and our Mission will seek in-kind and funding donations for the approximately $1 million of equipment required. Our Mission will assist with or fully fund the renovation of the space required for this clinic at TRCH.
Zakarpattia Regional Pediatric Hospital. Mukachevo, Ukraine:
The hospital has around 450 beds and treats approximately 6,000 patients per year. The population of Zakarpattia Oblast has more than doubled since 2022 due to its relatively safe location in Ukraine. This has also affected TRCH.
Our Mission is currently focused on renovating patient care and operating rooms. Dr. Larry Hollier (Vice Chair – TCH) traveled with us to Mukachevo in May 2026. He reviewed potential renovation of two operating theaters, last updated in Soviet times and with antiquated equipment. Dr. Hollier connected with “Kids OR” (https://www.kidsor.org), a Scottish-based nonprofit that renovates or builds operating rooms in pediatric settings worldwide. They are now working to cost out the renovation of one operating room. Dr. Hollier also invited pediatric heart surgeons from Lviv (St Nicholas Hospital) to travel to TCH for cross-training, and will hopefully send surgeons from TCH to Mukachevo and Saint Nicholas Hospital in Lviv.
We renovated one patient bath/treatment room in late 2026, yet much remains to be done. This includes the elevator for a four-story building built in 1886. Patients are carried up and down the stairs on a canvas stretcher to the operating room on the fourth floor. A children’s “park” or playground is planned to replace the location of the hospital’s former laundry barn and our Mission may assist with funding.
Our Mission has provided support for this hospital since 2024, when we funded the travel and accommodations for Dr. Yuriy Demyan, head orthopedic surgeon, to come to TCH in Houston to witness a significant operation on a patient of his, Masksym, a three-year old Ukrainian boy. This surgical procedure (8 hours) was successful, and the young boy is now completely ambulatory with a new prosthetic leg. Dr. Demyan also spent considerable time over two weeks in the operating theaters at TCH and BCM observing dozens of pediatric orthopedic surgeries.
POLAND
“SolNest” Community Center and Ukrainian Schools Support – Warsaw:
“SolNest” is being used extensively by multiple generations of Ukrainian refugees and we believe SolNest is the only such community center for Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw. Altogether, the SolNest touches about 200 Ukrainian women, men and children each week.
SolNest is open six days a week and provides: art classes, art therapy, cooking and cooking therapy, social time for Seniors (with food and music), woodworking and carpentry lessons and Polish language lessons, “Living in Poland” classes, Yoga, children’s exercise and musical therapy and legal and financial lessons, plays and theatre rehearsals. We recently added music therapy conducted by two Polish volunteer musicians. SolNest has welcomed groups of students, women cancer patients, parents with special needs children and disabled adults, orphans and senior citizens – all refugees from the war. The women and children, who come together to enjoy companionship with fellow Ukrainians in a stress-free and creative environment, are extremely grateful for SolNest’s art therapy classes and many other offerings. The Mission has witnessed and heard from many adults and children about their art therapy experience and how it has positively affected their lives. Equally Lilia and Lyudmyla (coordinator and teacher) have greatly benefitted from being “teachers” as they deliver hope and love to so many, and in so doing, have dealt with their own traumas from the war. We have witnessed their personal transformation.
Heart & Art Ukraine (H&AU), our partner organization in Switzerland (https://heart-art-ukraine.com), assumed funding SolNest’s monthly overhead costs in January, 2026 and our Mission pays for additional and ad hoc activities (e.g. music therapy, travel to Ukraine and summer trips near Warsaw).
During week of July 20, Lilia and Leszek traveled to Lviv to provide art therapy and woodworking classes to pediatric and mental health patients in two hospitals. They stayed in Lviv for four days, delivering some measure of happiness on the First Medical Union campus, to the children at St Nicholas Hospital and to the wives and mothers of fallen solders at the mental health clinic. Their last day was spent at the new pediatric hospital in Brody (north of Lviv), opened in late May by another partner, Sunflower Network (https://www.sunflowernetwork.io), which is an incredible story: built a brand-new hospital during the war. Lilia and Leszek provided art therapy classes to the children and donated artwork created by Ukrainian children at SolNest to decorate the new hospital, both paintings and woodworking pieces. Ukrainian kids in Poland helping Ukrainian kids in Ukraine. Going forward, SolNest can provide more art and craft decorations to the St. Nicholas and the Brody pediatric facility as well as provide art therapy to the children and the staff.\
Background:
The Mission created and developed multiple painting, crafts, woodworking and cooking classes through its art therapy programs with three teachers. In late 2022, the Mission started art therapy classes at the Modalinksa Refugee Center in Warsaw, a massive convention complex which then housed 4,500 Ukrainian women, children and elderly men. Several hundred young Ukrainian children – who could not take public transportation – were going to a school in the building administered by Love Does, an American charity. The Mission met an art therapy teacher, Lilia Stadnik, a refugee from Kherson, and agreed to install and support her art therapy program for refugee mothers and children at Modalinska. In mid-2023, the Mission secured free space on the ground floor in Hines Poland’s Wola Center in central Warsaw for Lilia’s classes. Later, the Mission engaged Lyudmyla, a refugee from Mariupol, to teach art therapy and arts and crafts at Ukrainian schools in Warsaw. In late 2024, the Mission started woodworking classes for Ukrainian refugee adults and children taught by Leszek, a Polish citizen. The Mission paid each teacher a monthly stipend and purchases all of the easels, paints, equipment and supplies for the art therapy classes.
In September 2025, the art therapy classes were moved from Hines Wola Center to a ground floor space across the Vistula river, still in central Warsaw, named “SolNest.” It is a comfortable resting place for the soul. H&AU purchased all the equipment and supplies for a full kitchen in SolNest in December 2025. The “Magic Kitchen” is the center of cooking classes and offers “comfort” in preparing traditional Ukrainian food several days a week, as one more method of trauma therapy. Moreover, Magic Kitchen is the forum for elder Ukrainians to spend time with Ukrainian youth preparing traditional Ukrainian foods. SolNest emphasizes projects and classes for refugees to retain their Ukrainian identity and culture.
Luydmyla provides arts and crafts for children five days per week at four Ukrainian schools in Warsaw. She also art therapy classes for Ukrainian families at the Museum of History of the Polish Jews (POLIN) on Saturdays. Lyudmyla organizes summer camps near Warsaw for many of her students and their families, with arts and crafts and outdoor activities.
Both Lilia and Leszek also hold classes at the POLIN Museum from time to time. They were married in April 2026. About quarterly, Lilia holds an art exhibition in Warsaw for her students to display and speak about their art and experiences.
Love Does School / Life Polska Foundation – Warsaw:
This is a school for Ukrainian children who cannot afford to go to the Ukrainian schools or do not wish to attend the Polish schools, with bullying and learning challenges. The school is a cooperative effort between Life Polska Foundation/Warsaw ( https://lifepolska.org.pl/en/about-us/) and Love Does (a US charity: https://lovedoes.org/ukraine/). The teachers are all Ukrainian refugees, most of them former teachers. About 200 Ukrainian refugee children attend the school, which is K through 12, and about 120 children are on the waiting list.
Love Does School identified potential space for the high school about a five minute walk from the existing Love Does School building on a main street with tram service. This will free up more space in the existing school building. We have now received estimates of the costs for floor renovation, furniture and future operating costs. Our Mission will assist with funding the renovation and furniture costs. Love Does aims to move the new high school space before September.
Lastly, our Mission is funding scholarships for two Ukrainian graduates (Class 2025) from the Love Does School to attend Warsaw University.
Background:
The Mission met with the Love Does School in early 2023 and has been a financial supporter ever since. The school first started in the Modalinska Refugee Center, but moved to a building in south central Warsaw. The Mission provides a monthly donation to support hot lunches for all 200 school children. Without that, many students would not have a lunch every day or would eat snacks from the corner store. The Mission also supports the Love Does students with physical education/sports/dance class two days a week. Lilia also teaches art therapy one day per week for students at the Love Does School. In late 2024, the school moved into the last open space in the current building and our Mission helped fund the new furniture.
Radiant Hope – Warsaw: https://www.radianthope.org
We began supporting RadiantHope on a six-month pilot project in May 2025 to bring trauma therapy and trauma therapy practices to Ukrainian teachers and caregivers in Warsaw and Łódź. RadiantHope is managed by Courtney Lauderdale, an American who has been active in delivering trauma care in India and Romania for over 15 years. She moved to Warsaw in 2024. One of the biggest issues facing Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees is the prevalence of PTSD and other traumas from the war and displacement. Trauma care for the orphan caregivers and school teachers is the first step in dealing with the children’s trauma. RadiantHope’s success in trauma care thus far has exceeded our expectations and we plan to expand the program. RadiantHope is working with teachers at the Love Does School as well as caregivers for approximately 1,500 Ukrainian orphans cared for by LifeSong (USA) and around 250 Ukrainian orphans cared for by Happy Kids (Polish). We will expand Courtney’s ability to reach more caregivers and teachers and, ultimately, the children, with a RadianHope web-based program of trauma care.
Happy Kids – Łódź: https://www.happykids.org.pl/sos-ukraina/
Happy Kids is now moving forward with its project to renovate a building donated by the city of Łódź, to be an Intergenerational Community Center. This will serve both Polish and Ukrainian orphans in areas of psychotherapy, transition to adult life, trauma care, and developing friendships among Ukrainian and Polish orphans. The City supports this initiative and plans are to include senior citizens to work and provide mentorship at the Center. Now, with available funding, the Center could be open in mid-2027. If successful, the concept could be replicated in other Polish cities.
H&AU will fund the renovation of the Happy Kids’ Community Center, estimated at $136,000. Annual operating cost are estimated at $245,000, which includes Happy Kids staff to support the center. Happy Kids believe when the Center is operational next year, they can apply for EU and European foundation grants. This has been a dream of Happy Kids for several years and is now about to come true.
Background:
Happy Kids was established over 25 years ago to change the old Polish (Soviet) orphan system to that of foster family, residential care. Happy Kids has 18 foster care homes in the Łódź area. At the start of the war in 2022, Happy Kids rescued over 1,200 Ukrainian orphans and their caregivers and found the safe shelter all over Poland. Happy Kids now has over 250 Ukrainian orphans remaining under their care in the Łódź area and other areas in Poland.
The Mission was introduced to Happy Kids in late 2022. Our first initiative, along with BCM & TCH, was to assist Happy Kids in 2022-23 in upgrading their management structure and re-organizing to handle the influx of Ukrainian orphans and be better positioned to apply for grants. We helped fund Happy Kids’ travel to Constanta, Romania to see BCM’s clinic and independent living housing for HIV-AIDS orphans (now in their 40’s), and as a transition home for others (“Flower House”). Happy Kids were so moved, they returned and started such a home in Lodz. In 2025, we provided trauma therapy for the Ukrainian caregivers of the Ukrainian orphans, delivered by RadiantHope. This was remarkably successful. We also periodically delivered hundreds of hand-knitted caps, gloves and scarves made by a number of women in Jackson, Wyoming.
Other Activities
Polish Medical Volunteers:
Our Mission supports “Foundation in the Meantime.” This is a group of Polish and international volunteer medics who have been working on the Ukrainian frontlines since 2014, when Russia initially invaded eastern Ukraine. They provide life-saving triage aid to military personnel in fiercely contested battle areas. They are at work in the “Kill Zone.” Our Mission has supported them by purchasing medical equipment and hosted them to fundraise in Texas. With financial donations from Alex Timken (Austin, Texas), his supporters and our Mission, together we have purchased over $65,000 worth of medical equipment.
Fair Dog Denmark: https://www.facebook.com/groups/673239411646284/
This is a volunteer women’s group (started under the auspices of an animal protection organization) that collects tons and tons (literally) of donations in Denmark and neighboring countries, prepares for shipment and transports it all to Ukraine. When Fair Dog needed a sealed container to store pet and human food in their barn (or be closed down by the authorities), one of our donors bought and sent two ten-foot containers to Fair Dog. Our Mission provides occasional financial support to transport donated goods and supplies to Ukraine.
Mission for Ukraine
GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/372849d90
July 2026