Paul Zalonski and Jayne Ryzewski on Sunday.
Even if the war in Ukraine ends tomorrow, which it will not, there will remain an urgent need to rebuild the Eastern European country’s Russian-destroyed economy and infrastructure and to repatriate its citizens.
That’s why folks at St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church, on George Street, who are at the center of the local volunteer relief effort, are digging in with the creation of a new nonprofit to assist Ukraine for the long haul.
It’s a 501(c)(3), currently in formation, to be called the New Haven CT Ukrainian American Humanitarian Aid Fund, Inc, and is comprised, in effect, of the three main contributors to the current year-long effort: The church, the Ukrainian American Veteran’s Post 33, and the Knights of Columbus.
That was the news Sunday morning after the Divine Liturgy service in Ukrainian as parishioners gathered in the parish hall to mark the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Organizers receive daily cell phone videos of how the received items are being deployed in Lviv.
The new group will enable donations to be processed more easily and new benefits to flow to the recipients who are largely soldiers, veterans, and their families in the Lviv Region in western Ukraine, where the church has established firm, family-based connections, and a distribution network.
A regular crew of volunteers like retired nurse Jayne Ryzewski have been involved over the last year in assembling, packing, and sending an enormous amount of medical and humanitarian supplies – from bandages, adrenaline, winter clothing, and wheelchairs to, lately, dry food, generators and jeeps, boots and sleeping bags, and the pace has not diminished.
Nor has the optimistic conviction diminished that the war will end in a Ukrainian victory.
In a very unofficial poll conducted by this reporter of Ryzewski and half a dozen others on Sunday, they rated their hope, on the Allan Appel 1‑to-10 scale, a solid 8.
However, the church’s long-time Ukrainian language Sunday school teacher Halia Lodynsky gave it a 10: “I’m very optimistic,” she said, “because of our faith. Even if there is a last person in Ukraine, that person will fight to the end. And if it’ll be me, I will give up my life if I have to.”
That faith, however, is also wide-eyed to the debates on Ukrainian support in the American Congress and in the future presidential campaign and to the long game of attrition being played by Russia.
Carl Harvey and Halia Lodynsky.
And that’s why the new nonprofit, said Myron Melnyk, a long-time spokesman for the church: “Even if the war ended tomorrow, look at the rebuilding effort; the economy is on life support. To rebuild will be a monumental effort and we are going to be part of that.”
And how long will the war last? Here’s Melnyk’s take on that: “It’s to Putin’s advantage to string it out. Plus he’s counting on U.S. resistance to give aid especially once the U.S. political campaign heats up, and in March when the federal budget is presented. He knows the debate will go on and that’s why he’s biding his time.”
But Melnyk and the church are not biding theirs. A new shipment of critical supplies, including generators, vehicles like jeeps and station wagons that can double as ambulances to bring back the wounded from the front, are scheduled to be the primary load of the March shipment.
In addition, said Carl Harvey, commander of the Ukrainian American Veterans Post 33 in Orange and a main organizer, reported that 79,000 surgical gowns and three pallets of face masks have just been contributed by Middlesex Hospital; volunteers are organizing to go there to collect them.
One of the newest volunteers, and a board member of the new nonprofit, is Todd Lane, whose day job is in academic affairs at the Yale-affiliated Bridgeport Hospital.
It was there in 2014, said Harvey, after the earlier Russian invasion of the eastern Ukraine that two Ukrainian soldiers were treated in the hospital’s hyperbaric chamber, a pure oxygen-filled unit designed to help treat hard-to-heal wounds like burns and crushed limbs.
(l-r) Todd Lane, Myron Melnyk, and Paul Zalonski
Harvey said he hopes a hyperbaric chamber for wound healing, contributed from our area, might be among the next shipments to Ukraine.
A team of volunteers is always in house accepting donations and help with packing at the church at 569 George St. every Tuesday from 5 to 7:00 p.m., Saturday 10 to 2:00 p.m., and Sunday, 11 to 1:00 p.m.