‘If we can do anything, I’d be delighted’ – florist offers to help Ukrainian family start new life in Sligo
by Seoirse Mulgrew Twitter EmailA florist has offered to fly a Ukrainian family to Ireland and set them up with a home and a job.
Micheál Feehily,of Feehily Florists in Carraroe, Co Sligo, first made the offer in a video on his Facebook page on March 16.
He has offered to give a Ukrainian person with experience in the florist industry a job and to help their family flee the war-torn country.
In the video, Mr Feehily held up signs reading: “If you’re a florist living in Ukraine and you would like to start a new life in Ireland, I would like to help.
“I will pay for flights and expenses for you and your family, help you find a home and give you a job for as long as you like.
“We would like to welcome you to Sligo, help give you and your family a better life. We can’t help everyone, but we would like to help one family. Love to you all.”
Mr Feehily said he would be delighted to help one family.
“I was kind of overcome with everything that was going on when I was watching news bulletins,” he added.
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“If we can do anything for anybody, I’d be delighted to help. It’s just such a tragic situation.
“I was talking to my wife, and we did make a donation to the Irish Red Cross, but I just felt so helpless and was thinking if it was the other way round and if it was us that this was happening to, I would just be so grateful if anyone did anything.”
He said he has spoken with a number of people online and helped other working professionals in Ukraine to get in touch with Irish businesses.
He also received offers of accommodation from other Sligo families willing to help.
“Although I’d love to do more, I kind of just said look, if we can help one family, and as a consequence we have kind of put other people on to other businesses,” he said.
“There was one lady who’s a web developer and we’ve been able to pass her information on to a couple of web development companies, so hopefully more might come of it than just as it is.
“If I can bring a family over and they’re happy to work for me for five years, they’re welcome, and if in three months’ time they find something better, I can shake their hand and say thanks.”
Mr Feehily said he had a “very positive” call with a Ukrainian woman with experience in the floral industry who is trying to leave Ukraine with her mother and two-year-old child.
“An Irish guy called Ciaran Murphy lives in Ukraine and he’s helping Ukrainian families to get to Ireland,” he said.
“He saw my post and set up a call with a florist who has a child, a husband who will be staying in Ukraine, and has a mother that wants to travel with her as well.
“She’s still in Ukraine. I feel we’re helping somebody more than just giving them a job, so the fact she’s still in Ukraine and wants to leave, for me, that’s what we want to do.
“Even going beyond that, I’ve a massive network within the florist industry, so you never know, we might be able to hook them up with other florist businesses. We want to genuinely help somebody.
“I’m kind of embarrassed by the whole thing in the sense that if something so simple can make such a difference to a family that’s in such a difficult time, I’m only too delighted to be able to do it.
“The lady has bad English, so one of the guys that works with me here, he’s from Latvia and he speaks Russian, and she speaks Russian so he sat in on the call.”