Gerry Frappier ran television stations for 25 years. Today he is part of a chain of kindness helping Ukraine.
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The name will no doubt be familiar to sports fans, as the man was president of RDS for 21 years and then headed all of Bell’s French-language channels for four years before retiring.
A few days ago, he and a group of five other men set off for Ukraine to serve pizza, but also to spread happiness and hope.
He is joined by Robert Turcotte, also retired and former vice president of RDS, Benoit Leduc, a retiree who still volunteers at BRP in Valcourt, Richard Kelly, a former firefighter who now runs a travel agency, and two other firefighters still on duty, Serge Fournier and Jocelyn Richer.
In ruins
They are organizing this trip, the cost of which they are covering in full, to help the Scottish foundation Siobanh’s Trust, which has been working in the country since the beginning of the war with Russia.
Gerry Frappier was impressed by the misery in which the Ukrainian people found themselves in the areas most devastated by the Russian invasion.
“The trigger was the news that the Ukrainian army had liberated the city of Kherson. The infrastructure was destroyed and the city had neither running water nor electricity.
“These people are really in need. They return to Kherson and it is sad to see. People are queuing in front of the army tankers to get water, they have no electricity and have to use the army generators.”
Jocelyn Richer explains that life goes on despite everything, which leads to special scenes.
“There is something special about seeing people go to work in the morning with sirens wailing or watching a road worker repair a fence destroyed by a tank. People go to a store with bullet holes in the window to have a coffee.”
Gerry Frappier (center, front) with a group of women making camouflage nets by hand. Courtesy of Gerry Frappier
Eat
Essentially, the men’s group will serve food to people who really need it. They will move from city to city with their trucks, especially in the east of the country, which is more affected by the fighting.
“It is a simple task, we have three or four trucks to feed the people. We give pizza, but it’s much more than that: we give hope,” explains Serge Fournier.
“We go to liberated cities and sometimes we are the first foreigners they see since liberation.
“Every day we have a meeting point; the police and the military are waiting for us. We serve up to 5,000 pizzas per day. We do it with atmosphere, with music, we involve young people.”
equipment
The men also want to bring as much equipment as possible because the rescue workers need it.
“The idea is to bring medical equipment, and in my department we rotate the equipment so that instead of selling it at an auction, we bring it there,” explains Jocelyn Richer. We have 14 defibrillators, we just need to find a way to transport them there.
And help is the be-all and end-all, says his fire brigade colleague Serge Fournier.
“A defibrillator alone costs about $1,500 and there aren’t many of them on the market.
“My dream would be for the official organizations of Quebec to be a little more involved, we are still following the regulations, while in Europe the Dutch and the French are sending complete ambulances.”