By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Sitting in an office in East Hall on the BGSU campus, the war in Ukraine is not that distant.
Ukrainian natives Alona Matchenko and Anastasiia Kryzhanivska are speaking about how they are working to help their embattled homeland.
Kryzhanivska’s phone dings. Once, twice, three times. She checks it.
She reads the news from her hometown Mykolaiv. Her mother has fled the country, as have more than 3 million Ukrainians. But her neighbor has stayed.
Just 10 minutes ago, the woman’s text reports the hospital near the apartment building where Kryzhanivska’s mother lived was destroyed in an airstrike. A nearby park and other buildings in the city have also been leveled.
This is the reality the two women live with.
Kryzhanivska is an assistant teaching professor in the BGSU English Department and director of the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program.
Matchenko is a business owner and law student at the University of Toledo.
She recalls the rally she helped organize on the UT campus on March 4. As she waited to address the rally, her mind was elsewhere. A week after the invasion, her mother, stepfather, and two young siblings were finally on the road to Poland.
“Here I am standing before they crowd of 400, and they are waiting for me to share something,” she said, “and I have no other thoughts other than how my mom and two kids were going to make it to the Polish border.”
They did. They are safe, she said. A stranger took them into their home. But they and other refugees have many and growing needs.
Matchenko helped launch Toledo Helps Ukraine.
The organization’s first task, she said, is to gather needed supplies and ship them to Ukraine. On Saturday, March 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. a drive to collect supplies will be held at 1500 Timberwolf Drive, Holland.
The effort has secured a 40 foot tractor trailer rig that they want to fill. They are hoping to fill it particularly with:
- Survival supplies: Flashlights, hand warmers, sleeping bags, tents, walkie-talkies, and other first aid items.
- Medical supplies: OTC medications, such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, naproxen, diphenhydramine, aspirin and vitamins.
They have also collected diapers, hygiene products and other personal care items.
Matchenko said that what they are collecting can change as they hear from refugees in Poland as to what the needs are.
She’s been asked why she just didn’t solicit monetary donations.
She responds: “I want to pack it with my own hands. I feel so much better doing it. … All this makes me feel so much better knowing we can help. It’s something that gives me at least a few hours of sleep at night.”
Also, there was the practical matter of not having their non-profit status squared away. Toledo Helps Ukraine has just recently received 501-(c)3 non-profit status under the auspices of Water for Ismael while they go through the paperwork to secure their own non-profit status, which could take as long as nine months.
“I’m not saying shipping will be a long-term goal,” she said “It’s very difficult. I didn’t realize how difficult. God blessed us, and we had a miracle.” That included having the rig donated.
Volunteers have come through, she said. And the effort secured support from Perrysburg City Council and Mayor Tom Mackin, from the law firm of Shumaker, Loop, and Kendrick, and UT, which helped with organizing the rally.
All that support was needed. She is a mother, small business owner, and law student, and not an activist until now.
“If it looks like we don’t know what we’re doing, that’s because that’s what it is. We’re not ashamed. We appreciate the patience,” Matchenko said.
The immediate relief effort is just the first stage of Toledo Helps Ukraine’s plans.
The group is committed to working with US Together to welcome Ukrainian refugees to Toledo when the U.S. government allows them to come. “Our long term goal is to make Northwest Ohio a welcoming place for refugees.”
Beyond that, she said, they want to raise funds to replace all the schools that have been destroyed by the Russian invasion. Again, she said, they will be seeking help from people with expertise who can help them stage fundraising events.
Kryzhanivska is involved in providing support of another kind.
She is soliciting greeting cards, either electronic or hard copy, to be sent to the children of Ukraine. She’s especially interested in cards made by children. This is part of a project sponsored by the World Affairs Council of Northwest Ohio.
The council is delivering care packages for children, including sweets, toys and the notes.
“Supporting people in any way is very important and one of the ways to do it is for people … to send cards like this,” Kryzhanivska said. “These messages of hope and solidarity are very important because Ukrainians need to know that they are supported.
“This is something that will help them continue fighting,” she continued. “This is something that will lift their spirits up. For children it is also important to know that they are loved that they’re being taken care of, that the whole world is trying to help them.”
Having those cards coming from other children is especially meaningful.
“This where it gets personal this is where you can actually feel the support,” Kryzhanivska said. “Those messages from children to Ukrainian children, this is what brings hope.”
She said: “I had a lot of friends with kids who worked on those cards with their children, and I think it’s a great opportunity for parents to take this time and talk to their children about what’s happening in Ukraine… and to explain to them this whole situation and to help them understand this world a little bit better.”
Digital cards can be emailed to Kryzhanivska at akryzh@bgsu.edu or physical greetings can be dropped off in her mail box on the second floor of East Hall on campus.
What feeds both women’s passion is their awareness of the tribulations of their family, friends, and colleagues face.
Both women first came here to study.
Kryzhanivska was an exchange student in Arkansas 10 years ago. She returned to Ukraine to finish her undergraduate degree. In 2014 she came back to the US to get a master’s degree at Ohio University and took a position at BGSU in 2016. Matchenko arrived as an exchange student more than five years ago. Both have found a home in Northwest Ohio.
“It’s very delightful to see how much impact and feedback we’ve received from Northwest Ohio,” Matchenko said. “I’ve been living here from 2016 as well. This is my second home. I am proud to be surrounded by people like this.”
She’s haunted by the plight of those in her homeland. “For me, my life is no longer the same. I cannot go back to my daily living without know I’m actually doing something,” she said. “I still have co-workers and friends in Kyiv in the bomb shelters. They are not really a bomb shelter. It’s a basement and doesn’t even have proper ventilation. So people choke. They can’t breathe in there.”
Kryzhanivska said her sister-in-law is a doctor in Mykolaiv and still goes to work every day. “We also have COVID cases that are surging because people are sitting together in close spaces, and wearing a mask is not a priority, so chronic cases are up. We have a pandemic and the war happening at the same time.”
She also has friends who are volunteering for the territorial defense force. “They’re not a part of the armed forces of Ukraine . They just picked up their rifles and are protecting the cities and towns where they are.”
A silent art demonstration was held in one city where 109 empty strollers were displayed to represent the children who had died to that point in the war, Kryzhanivska said. “The numbers are growing every hour.”
“All those stories and pictures,” Matchenko said, “that’s what makes us do what we do,”.
