Ex-Pasco mayor helps refugees at the Ukraine border

KENNEWICK — The former Pasco mayor’s around-the-world adventure has landed him in Poland, where he’s helping feed refugees near the Ukraine border.

“I’m not sure exactly what to expect from this experience, but I’m keeping my eyes and heart open,” Matt Watkins posted on his Facebook page, where he is sharing information about the impacts of war in Ukraine.

He’s volunteering in Przemysl, a town about the population of Richland, about 8 miles from the Ukrainian border.

“Imagine John Dam Plaza and the downtown area of Richland just full of Ukrainians,” he posted on Facebook Wednesday after his first day in the town.

“People with yellow vests everywhere, tents set up as warming shelters, restaurants open longer, and blue lights bathing everything from a few police cars parked around the area directing a perpetual traffic jam of a border town suddenly thrust into the literal center of the most bu(s)y border in the world,” he said.

He checked out the food warehouse where he would be volunteering, in preparation for his first official day there.

Watkins served on the Pasco City Council for 16 years, 10 as mayor, before announcing he was leaving at the end of 2019 to travel the world.

He was in Budapest, Hungary, last Saturday when he received an email from World Central Kitchen, an organization he had seen feed the needy in Haiti, Puerto Rico and the United States.

“Their mission is simple — using power of a warm meal to nourish people in times of crisis,” Watkins said.

The nonprofit now has warehouses to feed people on the borders in Poland, Hungary and Romania and even inside Ukraine, he said.

Watkins did not hesitate to volunteer, and was assigned to a “general helping hands” team in Poland.

“I’m stepping to the edge of my comfort zone on this one and think I’m striking the balance of reasonable risk with the right thing to do,” he posted before leaving Budapest, assuring friends that he did not plan to go into Ukraine.

He took a train from Budapest through Slovakia and the Czech Republic to Krakow, Poland.

From Hungary to Poland

“I’m in it now!” he posted on Monday. “My train this morning from Budapest was half full of Ukranians. By Slovakia 3/4 full, and Czechia there are people standing in the aisles. Many are headed to Poland to reunite with families that got out at a different border.”

The mood on the train was “somber and muted,” he said, but there were moments of warmth and laughter.

One refugee offered him bread and sausage to snack on as the train traveled toward Poland.

She was from south of Kyiv, Ukraine, and had traveled south through Moldova, west through Romania and Hungary and now was headed north with her two daughters to meet her husband in Estonia.

“I think that’s like trying to go from Seattle to San Francisco without being able to go through Oregon or southern Idaho to get there,” he said.

Watkins said he was stunned by her offer of food and told an English-speaker in the cabin he didn’t know what to do.

“You’re all refugees and offering me food?” he said.

The woman smiled and assured him through her impromptu translator that she wanted to share her family’s food with him.

Later, Watkins figured the dining car might be less crowded than his cabin and offered up his seat to those sitting on the floor while he left to eat lunch, lingering while the train was stopped for nearly an hour.

That generosity almost left him stranded.

His car was gone when he tried to return to his seat and his backpack. He finally found the car, moved to another track.

“Returning to the car my travel compatriots cheered,” Watkins said. “They were watching me the whole time and said they tried waving and swore they were 30 seconds from coming to get me.”

World Central Kitchen

Poland is the 36th country he has visited, and he switched to a bus at Krakow to reach Przemysl. He was one of just three people on board traveling to near the Ukraine border.

Initially, he’s staying in an Airbnb rental in Przemysl.

Before he arrived he got a message asking if he was planning to stay in the studio apartment he had reserved or if he was one of the thousands of people who had booked rooms as a way of transferring money to help with the crisis.

If that was the case, the Przemysl room could be used for people evacuating war zones, he was told.

Watkins, as a solo traveler, plans to find other accommodations to free up the Airbnb rental as soon as possible, he said. He had the Airbnb reserved for just three nights.

He arrived in Przemysl early enough to visit the food bank on the day before he was scheduled to start volunteering there.

He figured, based on his experience working the hydroplane races in Columbia Park in the Tri-Cities, that if he showed up an afternoon early there would be help he could offer.

He spent about four hours there, emptying trash, moving and adjusting shelf heights, wiping down tables and wandering through the warehouse.

He saw pallets of fresh apples, chicken stew base, rice and potatoes.

Industrial-scale ovens sat on pallets. Those and three propane-fired soup pots measuring eight feet across were ready for when food operations scaled up, he said.

His last posts were as he left for his first day of volunteering.

Poland’s ‘good people’

He said refugees were stepping off buses into 25-degree weather.

“Television reporters are lit up doing remotes in various languages,” he posted. “SIM cards are coin of the realm. Poles have driven from far away cities and dropped off spare baby strollers. Statues of popes have eternal candles and fresh flowers. They’re good people here.”

To read more about his experiences in Przemysl and those he meets, go to facebook.com/mattcwatkins. Donations to World Central Kitchen may be made at wck.org.