Woman who helped Chernobyl children organizing fundraiser for Ukraine

By Louisa Moller

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    MIDDLEBORO, Massachusetts (WBZ) — A Middleboro woman is once again fundraising for the people of Ukraine, more than a decade after she helped hundreds of children from the Chernobyl region receive medical treatment for illnesses linked to the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

After tackling thyroid cancer, Lorna Brunelle decided to help the Chernobyl Children Project in 2006. Through the project, Brunelle helped the second generation of Chernobyl victims, children who had been exposed to radiation while in their mothers’ wombs. Over three summers, hundreds of the kids came to Massachusetts to receive treatment for ailments from thyroid cancer to brain tumors, to heart problems.

“The idea of all these little children having a huge scar which they call the Chernobyl necklace and at the time my scar was still in the process of healing,” said Brunelle.

Now, all these children are adults and many of them are in peril again as the Russian war against Ukraine rages on.

Brunelle tears up at the prospect of grim history repeating itself as Chernobyl was the site of a firefight last week.

“I don’t even know if I can allow myself to go there because it is so completely overwhelming. I just can’t even imagine it and I just pray that it doesn’t come to that,” she said.

Brunelle says she is determined to help many of the young Ukrainian adults that she keeps in touch with.

She is organizing a fundraiser to help Ukrainian refugees which will take place on April 2.

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