VPSU planted this "seedling" solidarity community action in early March, 2022. With the speed at which the assault on the people of Ukraine began, there was little time to build up an organization by any normal standards or time periods. Since there is a lot of truth in "Everything begins with and idea," we simply ran with what we had which was, like many of you, the compelling sense of needing to do something.

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We put up our Facebook page immediately and began our outreach to Vermont State Government, towns and cities, churches, schools, organizations, businesses and, most importantly, individual Vermonters who share in the desire to make a statement of solidarity. In the last few days of March, we acquired our EIS from the IRS, our trade-name registration for the Vermont Secretary of State and opened a bank account. Our logo was designed, a dedicated e-mail solidarity@vtsunflowers4ukraine.org was established, and we built this Web site in house for a March 20, 2022 launch.

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In our third year we are still working out of our home and working late-night and early-morning around our "regular" jobs. On many days we are working long hours making contacts, packing seeds, shipping / delivering, and updating the latest information on our sites. In 2023 we gave out over a million Autumn Beauty sunflower seeds in every corner or Vermont.  We ask for the help of Vermonters in every corner of the state to join with us in this community action.

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