Cleveland Ukrainian-Americans Race Against Clock to Send Aid
From shipping tourniquets to raising funds, Ukrainian activists are sending help back home, while also preparing for an incoming refugee crisis.
Renata Kosc-Harmatiy has been “flustered” for the past 24 hours as she looks to rent a private jet.
Because it is wartime, Kosc-Harmatiy is having trouble. A lot of it. The U.S. government has proven unreliable and unreachable. Eastern Europe is quickly becoming dangerous to incoming planes. And, on average, a jet big enough to house personnel and a truckload of medical supplies costs well over $15,000 to fuel for an overseas venture.
“It is just very hard,” Kosc-Harmatiy said, sitting in the pews of St. Andrew’s Ukrainian Catholic Church in Parma. “There’s all the red tape. And in the meantime, people are dying of hypothermia.”
A catechist for kids at St. Andrew’s in prewar times, Kosc-Harmatiy’s day-to-day duties have intensified since Validmir Putin marched 190,000 Russian troops into Ukraine last week. Seven days into the unprovoked invasion, 752 Ukraine civilians and counting have died in the crossfire, and more than a million Ukrainian refugees are now dispersing across Europe as Stinger missiles fall behind them. And, as Ukraine President Volodymir Zelensky notified the United Nations, they’re direly in need of assistance. As soon as possible.
Those like Kosc-Harmatiy are answering that call.
Headquartered in Parma, the eighth largest enclave in the U.S. for Ukrainian-Americans, a coalition of churches, academics, nonprofits and healthcare workers are now mobilizing across Cleveland to provide as much medical assistance and supplies as possible to the soldiers remaining behind. “Every single day that we don’t get someone there,” Kosc-Harmatiy says. “That’s the problem.”
Nadiya Petriv, who came here in the sixth grade, is another immigrant orchestrating help from Cleveland. She got started back in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula — at which time she helped form the Maidan Association (named after the Maidan Revolution), a fundraising vehicle stationed north of Parma’s Ukrainian village.
Since then, she’s helped the association raise roughly $500,000 in Ukrainian aid and ship nine ambulances and over 500 parcels of clothing. She’s currently assembling pallets full of supplies — from tourniquets to hemostatic gauze and mylar blankets.
“If you’re not reading the news, if you’re not doing anything, you feel at fault for not doing more.” she says. “That’s probably the same way all Ukrainians feel.”
With more than 40 million Ukrainian nationals affected by Putin’s attempted blitzkrieg, it’s inevitable that some of those seeking refuge in Romania, Poland and Moldova will, one day, be bound for the U.S. (There are roughly 80,000 Ukrainian-Americans in Ohio.) They will require homes to stay in, meals to eat, schools to attend, immigration lawyers to aid visa status and mental health services to calm psychological traumas.
The weight of the future prospect overwhelms Kosc-Harmatiy: “Unfortunately,” she says, “we’re going to be uncomfortable for a while.”
Michael Hontaruk, a pastor at St. Vladimir’s in Parma, knows that his church will be one of the front doors — spiritually and medically — for future asylum seekers. A special mass on Feb. 27, attended by U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur and Parma Mayor Tim DeGeeter, signaled to Hontaruk the overwhelming outsider support.
“Last Sunday people came that weren’t Ukrainians,” he said, amid heavy breaths of contemplation. “They come to the service. I can’t describe it; I just want to cry.”
The invasion has reminded many local Ukranian-Americans of their deep, patriotic roots and led to a desire to be closer to those brandishing Molotov cocktails, pitching tents in subways, kneeling in front of Russian tanks. In other words, their family.
“All my cousins, aunts and grandparents are there — everybody’s on edge,” Petriv says. “My grandma’s seen the Soviet Union, Russian oppression. She’s seen a lot — and to see it again at 92?
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