Ashton Kutcher and Ukranian-born Mila Kunis are over halfway to their goal of raising $30 million for the people of Ukraine, after announcing their GoFundMe project on Thursday. The couple pledged to match up to $3 million in donations, and more than 30,000 people have already donated to the cause.
Kunis—who was born in the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi in 1983 and emigrated to the United States in 1991—spoke about her Ukrainian heritage and her decision to help the country of her birth. “I’m a proud American. I love everything this country has done for myself and my family,” she said in a video on the fundraising page and that the couple Tweeted, “but today I have never been more proud to be a Ukrainian.” Kutcher added, “And I’ve never been more proud to be married to a Ukrainian.”
On Saturday, the couple updated their fundraising efforts, captioning the post on Kutcher’s Instagram account “UPDATE!! 15 million. We are halfway to our goal. Thank you for the support!” Since Sunday, the funds have grown to over $18 million. Added Kunis “We’re super-excited, and we want to say thank you to each and every single one of you. It’s been an incredible past 48 hours.”
Kunis then introduced Ryan Petersen, the creator of Flexport, which is coordinating the shipment and disbursement of relief supplies to refugees, and Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, which has committed to housing up to 100,000 refugees, to give more insight into how the funds will be used.
She added “While we are witnessing the bravery of Ukrainians, we are also bearing witness to the unimaginable burden of those who have chosen safety. Countless amounts of people have left everything they know and love behind to seek refuge. With nothing but what they could carry, these Ukrainian refugees are in need of housing and supplies right away.”
“There are some problems in the world that take a village to solve, and there are other problems that take the rest of the world. This is one of those other problems,” said Kutcher. More than 1.5 million refugees have left Ukraine for neighboring countries since Russia invaded, the Associated Press reported on Sunday, and UNICEF estimates that at least a million of those refugees are children.
