NASHVILLE, Tenn.— It felt just a bit like Christmas on a warm Wednesday afternoon at Lipscomb University’s Allen Arena as St. Nicholas himself pitched in to help Ukraine.

His long, white beard flowing over red-and-white-striped overalls, Danny Jackson sat at a small table, gently wrapping sets of small paring knives with bright green handles and placing them in a cardboard box. Eventually, they’ll be presents for the people of Ukraine.

“Yes, I am a professional Santa,” Jackson said, anticipating The Christian Chronicle’s first question. It seemed appropriate, since the third century saint who gave rise to the jolly old elf’s legend was born in Turkey, which shares the Black Sea with Ukraine.

More importantly for Jackson, a 26-year veteran of the U.S. Army and Coast Guard, packaging relief supplies was a way to help out. So he and his wife, Corine — also known as Mrs. Claus — joined fellow members of the Hillsboro Church of Christ and other congregations to help Lipscomb students fill 1,000 paint buckets with relief supplies for those displaced by the war in Eastern Europe.

The Jacksons serve on the board of SeaStar Kids, a Nashville-based nonprofit that serves disadvantaged youths in Ukraine through summer Bible camps, year-round faith-building activities and college scholarships. Its founder, Dr. Gary Jerkins, surveyed the tables to make sure there were enough T-shirts, coloring books and wool hats to fill the buckets. 

“It’s dreadful,” the ophthalmologist and Hillsboro member said of the images he’s seen of the devastation in Ukraine, a country he’s visited 47 times since 1996. “Some of the people we’re connected with, I haven’t heard from them in five weeks.”

The Hillsboro church sent 500 buckets to Ukraine in 2014 after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russian separatists seized territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, displacing many Churches of Christ and forcing them into western Ukraine.

“It was a remarkably tangible thing” Christians could do in response to the crisis, Jerkins said. And some of those buckets led to baptisms — eight to 10 in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

“They had a bucket, and they knew that somebody cared,” Jerkins said.

A class project — 31 years later

Outside the arena, students placed buckets full of relief supplies on wooden pallets, grabbed empty ones and got back in line to fill them. Workers with Healing Hands International loaded the pallets onto trucks. From here, Healing Hands will transport them to Savannah, Georgia, and then overseas to Gdansk, Poland, for distribution to refugees.

“I can’t imagine enduring such heartbreak and loss,” said Lauren Scott, a senior biology major from Fort Myers, Florida, of the refugees’ plight. Her congregation, the Otter Creek Church of Christ in nearby Brentwood, also is filling buckets for Ukraine. She was glad to be doing something to help.

It was also a way for students to earn service credits on a day when they didn’t have classes, added Connor Adair, a freshman musical theater student from Oklahoma City. Lipscomb’s president, Candice McQueen, had followed in her predecessors’ footsteps, declaring the day after her inauguration a “Beautiful Day.” That meant no classes and lots of activities — including the buckets for Ukraine. McQueen and her family worship with the Hillsboro Church of Christ. Her husband, Andy McQueen, serves as an elder.

Sean Judge, a worker with Healing Hands International, grinned as he heard students talk about bucket-filling as an easy way to get service project credits.

After all, “this whole thing was for a grade,” said Judge, who directs the nonprofit’s Walk4Water program.

Thirty-one years ago, students of Lipscomb marketing professor Randy Steger launched a class project to meet the mounting medical needs in the collapsing Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The students devised a system to send suitcases filled with medical supplies, carried by missionaries headed to the region. Soon, the donated supplies spilled out of Lipscomb’s auditorium, and university officials asked them to find another place to store them. The result was Healing Hands, which has shipped relief supplies to more than 75 countries.

When Healing Hands’ president, Art Woods, found out about Dr. Gary Jerkins’ latest bucket-filling initiative through SeaStar Kids, Woods offered to buy additional buckets for the cause. So did John Kachelman Jr., a longtime minister who coordinates Ukraine Missions, a ministry of the Dalraida Church of Christ in Montgomery, Alabama. In all, the multi-ministry effort will send at least 10,000 buckets to Eastern Europe.

At Lipscomb, students grabbed cards with a message of hope, typed in the Ukrainian language. On the back they wrote additional messages in English before sealing the cards in the buckets. 

About five miles away, at Healing Hands’ warehouse near the Nashville zoo, workers loaded additional buckets received from churches across the country.

The ministry provided a “bucket list” of supplies that church members purchased. Several decorated their buckets with hearts, flowers and phrases such as “Prayers for Ukraine.”

Jerry Blythe climbed atop a stack of buckets as he helped to fill a trailer for the long journey overseas. By the time the trailer was full, Blythe was covered in sweat and out of breath — but all for a higher purpose.

“We want to help out any way we possibly can,” said Blythe, a member of the Rural Hill Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee, speaking for his fellow retirees who volunteer for Healing Hands. “We give God all the glory.”

Jesus went about helping people, he said. As a result of the benevolence work, “maybe many souls will be saved for Christ.”

Kelly Clarkson: ‘I love your energy’

The bucket project got national media attention recently — thanks to a $5 bill and a sixth grader named Finnegan Roberts.

Roberts, a student in Lisa Shaffer’s class at Meigs Magnet Middle School in Nashville, took part in a class project to place plastic bags with $5, an inspirational note and a piece of candy at places around town to encourage others.

Roberts chose to leave a bag on the door of the Hillsboro Church of Christ, where she and her family have served through the Room in the Inn program. During winter months, Hillsboro and other Nashville-area churches house the homeless as part of the program. Hillsboro staffers found the money and put it toward a “staff bucket” that they filled as part of the church’s Ukraine relief.  

Producers with the “Kelly Clarkson Show” found out about the school project and invited Roberts and Shaffer to appear on the show for a segment called “Good Neighbors.”

Clarkson, the singer/songwriter who rose to fame by winning the first season of “American Idol,” interviewed the teacher and student about the project before bringing out a surprise guest — Paul Nance, coordinating minister for the Hillsboro church.

“They look disappointed,” Nance joked. “I think they wanted Snoop Dogg” — the hip-hop artist who co-hosts the reality show “American Song Contest” with Clarkson.

Clarkson told Nance, “I love your energy. … I need a dose of it!” She also praised the efforts of the church and of Shaffer’s class, comparing them to the story of the widow’s two mites in Luke 21.

“It’s important to remember that every little bit counts,” Clarkson said. She then announced that her show would donate an additional $10,000 to the church’s bucket campaign.

Back in Nashville, Gary Jerkins said he’s appreciative of the interest and attention the campaign has generated.

But that interest will fade, he added, and the needs in Ukraine won’t soon disappear. The devastation and the disruption of millions of lives will have long-term effects that will require a long-term commitment to service.

“We’re in the sprint phase right now,” he said, “but this is a marathon.”

This story first appeared in the Christian Chronicle.

Erik Tryggestad is president and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. He has filed stories for the Chronicle from more than 65 nations.