Local neighborhood rallies together to show support for Ukraine

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – Wilmington, North Carolina may be over 5,000 miles away from Ukraine, but that isn’t stopping one local community from showing its support.

“We felt so helpless, seeing what’s going on,” said Wilmington resident Jacque Wade. “We just felt so hopeless.”

After watching what has happened in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasions, two neighbors in Mason’s Bluff wanted to do something to show their support for the people targeted by those attacks.

Jacque Wade and her neighbor, Laura Howrey, came up with the simple way to show they care for the people of war-torn Ukraine.

The neighborhood chose to rally together for the country and its people, with something as simple as a blue and gold bow.

“We put a note in with the bows to tell them what we were doing, and why we were doing it,” Wade said. “By that night, we had everybody’s bow on their mailbox.”

Houses proudly display them along their mailboxes, lining the street of Mason’s Bluff community.

The outcome, Wade and Howrey say, is more than they could’ve ever hoped.

“There’s no political divide, nobody said no, it’s just unanimous,” Howrey said. “It’s a unanimous situation, and we all just want to do the best we can.”

Every single mailbox on Mason’s Bluff Ct. has a ribbon — a powerful symbol to hopefully life the spirits of people half a world away.

“Just bringing our one community together, we could bring the whole city together,” says Wade. “The whole country together, the whole world together.”

While their efforts are a symbolic act, Wade and Howrey hope the news about their neighborhood campaign somehow makes it to the people of Ukraine, so that they know people in the United States are supporting them.

They’re also encouraging others to find a way to support the effort through their own community or business.

“It just shows everybody that you’re supportive and that you care,” Howrey said. “And we’re united.”

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