New Life After Fleeing War Torn Ukraine

Andrii, Nataliia and Mark arrived in the United States with only two suitcases, a backpack and a stroller. The family was forced to evacuate their home and ended up relying on the kindness of others for over two months until they were able to make the long-delayed trip to the US. They are a wonderful family, and I’m incredibly honored that I could get them to Wisconsin, where they are safe and able to finally relax.

People in our community, family and friends have been very generous with helping to get my home ready for them and donating clothes, toys and gift cards. A good friend has allowed them to use a car for a while, which has been a HUGE help! The money donated will help them purchase a vehicle, medical/dental/vision care, documentation to work, cell phones for communication, a laptop, etc. They will eventually like a small place to call their own and will need everything it takes to get that set up.

They are very proud, humble and gracious and have asked for nothing (this fundraiser was my idea), but reaching these goals would help them move closer to a much-deserved success as they begin their new life in the USA! Once you meet them, you will love them as much as I do!!

Below is a message from Andrii and Nataliia:

Hello friends, we would like to share with you our story. We are a very friendly family of mother Nataliia, father Andrii and our beautiful son Mark. We came to the USA from Hostomel City (there are three cities: Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin located together in North West Kyiv, Ukraine). We had a good life in Ukraine, but on February 24th, our life, unfortunately, totally changed. We woke up to hear bombs, airplanes and helicopters above our home. It was terrifying for us, and our thoughts were confused. In the next few seconds, we heard an aircraft flying above our home, but we didn’t know if it was an airplane or bombs falling on our home. We hid in the corridor, embraced each other and started to pray. The aircraft we heard was bombing the airport, located 2 miles from our home. The bombing didn’t stop, and that is when we understood the war had started. We started throwing things into suitcases and ran away from our home. As it turns out, we did the right thing, because the next day, the russian killers were in our home and during the next month, they raped a lot of women in our city, killed almost every man who stayed in their home and killed a lot of children.

We went to Europe but could not find a job to care for our family because we don't speak any other language except English. In Europe, we spent 2.6 months and met terrific people who helped us immensely.

At the end of April, the US government implemented a program called “United for Ukraine,” we understood it was our chance to start a new life; Andrii speaks English, and we’ll now have an opportunity to take care of our family in the USA. Nataliia had joined some groups on Facebook to find a person who could help us come to the USA. We sent a message to Tammy Smith from River Falls, WI, who we previously didn’t know, and she replied to us the following day. We got to know each other through video chat, and Tammy said she would be happy to help us! One evening, it only took Tammy to fill out the forms needed for the program, and the process started. We got final approval after three weeks, and on May 24th, we came to the USA!

America has welcomed us extremely friendly; our new friends in New Jersey, Alex and Sofia, helped us a lot upon our arrival in New York. Their amazing daughters Alisa, Vera, and Sasha, took care of Mark while we stayed there. And even in the car, little Vera used to fasten the seatbelt for Mark.

On May 27th, after several flight changes and hours of waiting in the airport in New Jersey, we finally landed in Minneapolis, where our angel Tammy was waiting for us! We have started to call Tammy an angel because she is very significant, exceptionally amazing, and a tremendously peaceful person for us. In Tammy’s home, we feel we are at home. The ambiance and atmosphere are lovely, and Tammy treats us like her family. Although we are very grateful to Tammy for daring to do this, it’s a big responsibility, and not everyone would go for it. Thank you to our angel Tammy for such precious and peaceful mornings.

With love,

Andrii, Nataliia and Mark