BBC Scotland journalist Paula Mackinnon gathered six-and-a-half tonnes of toys and clothing with the help of friends, colleagues and the Blythswood Care charity.
Since March, she has been distributing them to orphanages in Ukraine which are home to 100,000 children.
Paula told the BBC Scotland news website her story of trying to get a lorry load of Scottish humanitarian aid through linguistic and bureaucratic barriers.
It has been a rollercoaster of a time since March and one of the major problems has been language - few people here speak English and I have an interpreter only some of the time.
Paula admits there has been laughter and tears along the way
I've become rather adept at sign language and ordering fizzy water in a shop the other day was good fun!
With the children, a lot of the time it doesn't matter. We communicate through fun and games. To be honest, the adults are more difficult.
There are 100,000 orphans in the country, mostly abandoned by parents due to drug and alcohol abuse. Many have TB or are HIV positive.
The orphanages in the countryside are most in need. Some of the conditions are awful.
Children have no shoes, threadbare clothes and few toys. One place had two footballs for 130 footie-keen children. The buildings are dilapidated, and so cold at night that many kids wet the bed.
Government permission
Getting the aid to Ukraine was easy enough thanks to the Blythswood Care charity. Then we hit a problem at customs.
There was so much stuff we needed government permission to distribute it. A new rule apparently, and a situation not helped by the domestic political crisis.
So the goods were held at customs for almost three weeks. Some went missing, but not much.
The day I got a call to say they had found drugs in the cargo was scary, but they decided to let me off as it was children's paracetamol.
Once the aid was released from customs, I hired transport to transfer the goods to the main orphanage at the city of Cherkassy in the centre of Ukraine.
Most of my time with the children is spent with laughter, but I have struggled with tears on occasion
From there we sorted the goods out further and got lorries to donate to five orphanages in the countryside and a hospital for sick babies.
The bureaucracy in donating has been surprising, and I've had to remind myself of the point of being here - and of the kindness back home.
When we were distributing the aid to the countryside a journalist from a Ukrainian national newspaper jumped into the van to interview me.
My aid helper hadn't warned me of this and I spent the next hour trying to give the reporter a snapshot of Scotland. I'm an oddity here!
Most of my time with the children is spent with laughter, but I have struggled with tears on occasion.
There was a three-year-old boy called Valdec, new at the orphanage, who wouldn't let go of my hand. I almost forgot he was there as I carried on with my business.
Then I looked down and saw that he had his face in my palm, caressing it. I thought he was upset and went to comfort him, only to find him in joy - savouring human touch and warmth, as if for the first time. That was tough.
I've moved accommodation three times now. The flats are generally very poor and for a lot of the summer there is no hot water. One apartment was filthy and had beetles on the bed.
That evening I called my husband in tears saying I didn't know how I was going to wash my hair! I think that's probably called 'displacement' or something.
However, my difficulties were as nothing to the poverty of opportunity faced by the orphans, who you have helped me to help.
Thank you all, and that comes from myself and the hundreds of children and staff at the orphanages we helped in Ukraine.
You can contact me at paulamackinnon@btopenworld.com or Blythswood Care at info@blythswood.org.
