Transcript of the Video:
One of the questions that has driven my life is how bullies intimidate smaller people. I visited the Anne Frank Memorial in The Netherlands, and it viscerally broke my heart to see how someone was betrayed to a concentration camp and killed. And I swore to myself in my early twenties that if I ever saw a genocide, I would be the first to stand up.
People have asked, with no relationship prior to the war in Ukraine, how I became involved in February of 2022. I, with horror, watched cities being blown apart, people fleeing, millions and millions of people having to leave their homes to flee the rockets and attacks and thousands being killed.
And I still remember a young child all alone separated from his parents, crying on a sidewalk, and it just broke my heart that people had to flee their safe, quiet, comfortable, warm homes. It just broke my heart to see that the largest evacuation in modern history was happening in front of my eyes in Ukraine as they fled the ongoing Russian assault. I made a commitment to go to Ukraine and see what I could do.
It is radical. When I met the people, they were haggard, wearing scarves, older clothing, psychologically shaken. I went to the the UN shelters where they were living, but they lived with no dignity, no hope, and no respect. They were alive, but they lacked those three elements. So we formed the base of our charity to restore dignity, hope, and respect, and that means that you're elevated. You're not simply given the minimum to survive. You're supported to the level that you can have your dignity and hope renewed.
And I've now spent the last three years working in Ukraine, providing food, 1,900 meals a day. Another point, I built 450 modular homes for people who had them destroyed in the early days of the war. But then I've come to know that I need to build full communities where people can resurrect their lives. And that requires returning you to a neighborhood, a community, and a village with everything that you would fill in that village. So there's nothing in the village that I wouldn't build if they needed it.
But I want you to see what the people look like today. This is what they look like. They look like everything you and I would expect we would look like. They are fully integrated. This book is something I look at whenever I want to be motivated because this work is hard, I look and I remember these people as refugees. And now I see them as human beings, fully functional.
So that's what drives me. What a gratitude that they would send me this book and show me how they've recovered because they know how I saw them when they arrived. I met every one of these individuals when they arrived at the village by Zoom or in person. And this is a miracle. That's why we call it the Chudo Village, the miracle village. It transforms lives.
The bucket to help people is a very large bucket, but every drop into the bucket counts. They need housing. They need education. They need medical care.
I started dropping into that bucket thirty two months ago just as I approached at the end of this year a $140,000,000 of my own money. I have no profit motive. I only want to save one more. I tell you that is my heart. Every time I see this, I think I could sell another company.
I've now sold my equity in five companies and immediately moved it to Ukraine. I sold a soccer club, and I took that money, and most of it went to Ukraine. I wake up dreaming what more I could sell because I know there's nothing I own that is more important than saving people that cannot save themselves. They're dependent on us. We need to stand against the bully.
We need to stand against power. We need to support these people, not betray them.
Dell Loy’s story reminds us that sometimes philanthropy is about courage. It’s about choosing to stand up when others stay seated. To act when others watch.
At UI Charitable, we believe every individual has a story, a spark, or a cause that lights them up.
Whatever it is, we're here to help you turn that spark into action with clarity, direction, and joy.
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