Marshall Mayer, in conversation with Ken Bernard, will discuss the heroic humanitarian relief efforts young volunteers are bringing to war-torn Ukraine and his unforgettable first-hand experiences.

— an announcement from the Darien Men’s Association

The event starts at 10:45 a.m., Wednesday, April 19, in the in the Garden Wing of the Darien Community Association, at 274 Middlesex Road.

A Westport native, Marshall is a New York City-based finance professional who has been active in Ukraine since the first weeks of the war to coordinate refugee assistance, supply, and transport on both sides of the border.

He and his brother Brian launched the non-profit Ukraine Aid International (UAI), and together they have facilitated the shipment and delivery of more than a million pounds of food, medicine, medical supplies, and humanitarian aid into Ukraine, mostly to the war-torn regions of Kharkiv, Kherson and Donetsk.

UAI has installed infrastructure support that is providing 120,000 Ukrainians daily with access to clean water, heat, and electricity. Working in the nonprofit sector on and off for a decade, Marshall has a passion for helping those in need. In 2013, he founded a nonprofit in the Philippines that responded to Typhoon Haiyan and helped to rebuild island communities that had been devastated by the storm.

Ken Bernhard is a senior partner at the Connecticut law firm of Cohen and Wolf. He graduated from Yale (1966) and NYU Law School (1970) and then served in the U.S. Army as a member of the Judge Advocates Corps, first as trial counsel and then as an associate professor of law at the Military Academy at Westport, where he taught criminal and constitutional law.

Ken served eight years as a State Representative representing his hometown of Westport in the Connecticut Legislature. Ken is also a Senior Attorney with the Center for International Legal Studies located in Salzburg, Austria and under its auspices taught in multiple law schools from Latvia to Mongolia, including Ukraine, which is what motivated him to get involved in what is happening there and teaming up with Marshall and Brian.

From the DMA website:

Speakers’ presentations are usually delivered in-person in the Garden Wing of the Darien Community Association, at 274 Middlesex Road, Darien, though, occasionally, speakers may join the group on a remote basis via Zoom.

The DMA’s weekly meetings are typically conducted on a hybrid basis with many DMA members attending in-person while others participate online via Zoom.  Our meetings start promptly at 10 a.m., with the speaker program commencing at about 10:45 a.m., followed by a lively Q&A session.  Our meetings end at 12 noon. Importantly, spouses and significant others are cordially invited to attend the speaker part of our weekly meetings.