OKKO network collected a record number of used items in 2018

More than 150 tons of used items for the low-income families were collected in 2018 at OKKO filling stations. That is the best result in all six years of the project’s existence. More than 30,000 people in Ukraine have already benefited from his help.

OKKO network has installed special containers to collect items, where each of the customers, coming to the filling station, can occasionally leave used clothes, shoes, bedding, which others may use. Such containers are currently available at 18 filling stations of the company (full list and addresses – here) in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia. In 2019, it is planned to install 6 more containers, the first two of which will start operating in January in Mariupol. OKKO’s partners from public volunteer organizations pick up the collected items, sort them and distribute them free of charge among those who need them.

Recipients of such assistance are primarily residents of boarding schools and geriatric facilities, hospice patients, the poor, IDPs and others. Thanks to the sensitivity and support of Ukrainians, it is easier for them to overcome difficult life circumstances and feel that business and ordinary citizens have not left them to their own devices.  In the category “Reduction of inequality” OKKO project to collect second-hand items became the winner of the ІХ National competition of business cases on corporate social responsibility “Business that changes the country” in the spring of 2018.

According to Anna Tykhovska, Sustainable Development Manager of OKKO filling station network, the effectiveness and efficiency of this project depends on the fact that it organically combines the efforts of responsible business, concerned citizens and volunteer associations. In particular, in 2018 OKKO’s partners were the following charitable foundations and public organizations: “Ukraine Without Borders” (Kyiv),  “Caritas” (Kyiv), “Emmaus-Oselya” (Lviv), “Good Samaritan” (Odesa), “Let’s Help”(Dnipro), “Caritas Ukraine” (Kharkiv), “Ukrainian volunteer movement” (Vinnytsia). Most of them have been cooperating with a company for several years and they are ready for further long- term cooperation.

“Containers at OKKO filling stations are the solution to several problems at once: support for socially vulnerable people and a new life of old things,” said Olga Vorobyova, project coordinator at the “Ukraine without Borders” foundation. –“For example, the dress from which your daughter grew up will still be useful for a child from a low-income family. And someone else will be able to wear your unfashionable jeans for even a few years. At the same time, it is a chance to make our planet cleaner. Because we do not scatter things but learn to consume them wisely.”