PRZEMYSL, POLAND– A 60-year-old small business owner from Sacramento, California, rented an RV and traveled across Poland delivering thousands of dollars of supplies to the Ukrainian border amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
Arthur “Art” Ballard met with the Daily Caller to discuss his journey and all the mishaps that happened along the way, including almost falling asleep at the wheel, his team getting fined for illegally crossing the border and several problems with his RV.
“I’m here to do as much as I can for two and a half weeks. I rented a motor home to carry stuff down to Przemysl” on the border with Ukraine, Ballard told the Daily Caller on his first day of the journey in Warsaw, Poland.
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“I’m just kind of winging it, I just got in last night,” he added.
“Well it’s official, I think I’ve lost my f-ing mind here,” Ballard said the next morning, filming his RV packed to the ceiling with paper towels.
“There’s a ton of stuff there… $4,000 worth of Easter bunnies… hahaha, no there’s a whole cabinet underneath that has juices and thousands of coffee cups and all this stuff. This took us all day to do,” he said.
Ballard then drove the RV from Warsaw to the border.
“I have arrived finally after falling asleep like 25 times,” he said on video while standing in front of the refugee center in Przemysl, one of the first stops the refugees make after entering Poland. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Poland Took In 2.3 Million Ukrainian Refugees. Here Is How It’s Faring)
“The most important thing is that they’ve got a McDonald’s here. The Polish love their McDonald’s,” he added, panning the camera to the restaurant in the distance.
He also posted on Facebook about grabbing a Polish hot dog on the way.
Ballard also met with the Daily Caller in Przemysl outside of the Ukrainian refugee center after delivering a load of supplies.
“I just dropped off all the stuff that I brought down from Warsaw … 4,500 dollars worth of paper towels, chocolate bunnies, little drinks for the kids, stew,” et cetera, he said, adding that he was contacted to raise money and help build a volunteer center at the Medyka border crossing between Poland and Ukraine.
Ballard then ran into a series of problems — the air conditioning unit on his RV was ripped off when he drove under a low bridge and he broke down in the middle of the road when he used the wrong gas.
“They don’t use diesel with the green handle in Europe,” he said in a Facebook video, chuckling.
“Arthur, what the f*ck were you doing?! You put in the wrong f*cking gas!” Colin, a fellow volunteer, told Ballard.
Colin and Ballard then took a drive around the countryside after working on building the volunteer facilities, only to get Colin fined by the Polish police, according to Ballard.
“About 30 minutes into the drive, Colin says, ‘Christ lad, we’re near to the Ukraine border!’ He points towards a tower that looms ominously over the fertile farmscape. We drove towards the tower and I stop at a dirt road that leads directly to it. Colin says, ‘I’ll be right back. If I get shot don’t tell me wife,'” Ballard said.
The police interrogated Colin for getting too close to the border, Ballard continued.
“After about 5 minutes they gave all of our documentation back and fined our poor Colin the Irish Guy 400 zlts or about $100under the circumstances, we felt like we got off easy. Colin the [Irish] Guy was a little shaken up though for the moment. He is now afraid of all borders of all countries!” Ballard wrote.
Ballard is still in Poland delivering thousands of dollars of supplies to the border and helping construct the volunteer facilities.