Vaughn lives in Bozeman and said after her two sons left home, she found herself with a bad case of empty nest syndrome and knew she had to do something. She had known for a while that she wanted to do humanitarian work.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, she received an email from World Central Kitchen inviting her to go over and feed refugees entering Poland.

Within eight or nine days, she raised more than $30,000. A few days later, she left Bozeman and headed for Krakow, Poland.

“I think at that point in time, (people) were looking for like a really tangible way to help,” Vaughn said. “I felt like everybody and anybody I knew was just throwing money my way once I told them that I was coming to Poland.”

Vaughn began feeding refugees about 10 minutes from the Ukraine border. They waited in miles-long lines — sometimes for days — in the freezing cold to cross over.

“I can’t think of a word to describe it. Overwhelmingly sad?” she said. “But also. ... once they got over the border into Poland there was like a half a mile length of all these vendors that came from all over the world just to feed the Ukrainians for free.”

Vaughn said one woman from London had brought supplies for women and set up a tent for breastfeeding with changing tables and formula.

“It was amazing to see that side of humanity,” she said.

Vaughn said she found that WCK was a well-funded organization, and she wanted to use the money she’d raised to help those who were starting over with nothing.

In the first week in April, she still had $15,000 left and decided to cross the Ukraine border to Lviv to find a woman who was setting up a shelter for about 130 people in an abandoned monastery.

It turns out that they didn’t have a kitchen, fridge, or washing machine. They were all sharing one bathroom, and there were only 12 beds.

Vaughn gave them money to build another shower, get a couple washing machines and more beds.

After a few months with WCK and helping at the shelter on her days off, WCK asked her to stay as a paid contractor.

Along the way, she met David Faeder, her now-partner in Direct Effect Action Network. They formed the organization to manage donations and to help wherever help is needed across the globe.

The organization has promised the shelter that they will support them for whatever they need. Most donations to DEAN average between $500 and $1,500.

“I’m really proud of our little organization,” Vaughn said.

“Plus, for me, democracy is worth not giving up on,” she later added. “It’s worth going back and thinking about. When I think about working for World Central Kitchen and also helping by crossing the border...I like to call it ‘feeding democracy.’”

Vaughn went to Ukraine seven times over five months while working for WCK. With Faeder’s help, they set up a study center, got laptops, brought in food items and built out a full kitchen at the shelter.

In October, Faeder bought generators in Germany and drove them to Ukraine for hospitals in Kherson. Vaughn said he wore a bulletproof vest when delivering them.

Vaughn doesn’t necessarily feel like she’s in danger working in Lviv, she said, although there are warning sirens periodically that send the populace into underground shelters.

Her current trip is the first time she’ll be traveling to some of the more dangerous areas. She said she’s not nervous, though, because she has drivers she trusts who do this every day.

Of one driver, Vaughn said, “he’s just amazing. He has this sparkle in his eye and he makes you feel like you’re safe. I don’t know how to describe it. But of course, you’re looking around outside of the van and you realize it’s a dire situation that you’re driving through.”

Vaughn said helping in Ukraine is addictive. When she flew home at the end of last May, she said she was restless and a bit depressed until she began gathering more supplies to take back overseas.

Vaughn is bringing 1,300 pounds of surgical supplies, some donated by Bozeman Health, to different cities in Ukraine. She’s also going to Zaporizhzhia to bring a 15-year-old a specialized wheelchair that she helped raise money for.

Vaughn said she can’t volunteer all the time without an income, so she plans to do private cooking intermittently and return to Ukraine before summer delivering more supplies.

She’ll also see what comes up in the world that might send her somewhere else.

“We’ll see where the needs are coming from, but I think that definitely a part of my heart is in Ukraine,” Vaughn said. “I’m not trying to be a saint, and I don’t think of myself as brave. But the people, the contacts that you find yourself surrounded by when you’re making efforts like this, that’s an incredible synergy that you have with people who are all trying to help. That’s what I love. That’s what keeps me going back.”