When Russia invaded Ukraine, mother and retail analyst Mary Epner found herself watching news "obsessively" at her New York Upper East Side apartment.

But  she found watching wasn't enough. She wanted to help.

She reached out to a friend from business school, who was in Ukraine and Poland leading efforts to organize help with a humanitarian relief project Help Ukraine22 administered and directed by The Committee for Open Democracy.

"I communicated with him and said, 'What can I do to help?'," Epner said.

She donated money, but that also wasn't enough for her.

With years of experience of working as a buyer for big retail companies, Mary thought she could help on the ground with logistics of getting people from the border to Warsaw and getting supplies from Warsaw to the border.

"All my years of working in retail, in stores, and managing logistics and supply chain, and people, you know, helping people and, you know, supporting people and working together would pay off," said Epner.

"So, that's what I'm hoping that I will be able to contribute in going over there."

She also decided to take as much supplies as she could with her.

The supplies fit in six suitcases. The seventh, Epner used for her own belongings.

"OK, so everything is important, but the two top things that they wanted were, let's see, number one, (pain killers), for obvious reasons. People coming through the border in pain because they've been hurt, they've been walking, whatever, and they have ailments. So, they wanted Advil," Epner said.

"And then the second thing that they wanted was (medicine to) help stop the bleeding. And again, for obvious reasons. So, those were the two top items that they wanted over there. But also they need the gauze, and the tape for various ailments or accidents or something like that.

"These people have been walking a long way. They've been carrying kids, babies. So, we have all of these different instruments. We have a glucose meter as well. They needed these, and Band-Aids, and Prilosec. We have some extra masks."

Epner's family supported her.

"Mary is absolutely an inspiration to me, to the people in my life," said husband Mitch Epner.

"It is so in character for my mother when there's a global crisis going on instead of just saying, 'I'll donate some money,' (she says) 'I'll go, I'll go fly, fly across a quarter of the world to help out in person,' because that's just the kind of person she is, and it's really amazing," said Epner's 19-year old daughter, Madison.

Epner will be in Warsaw, Poland, for two weeks.