CINCINNATI – Piled four feet high, up against the wall, boxes and boxes of clothes, blankets, hygiene items, and medical supplies have taken over the floors at the small office space Cincy4Ukraine calls home.
Recently returned from Kyiv, Tuesday was one of the first chances Evgenia Nemiroskva De Santos had to see and sort through all the donations that accumulated over the past three months. Over the next several weeks, she and her fellow volunteers will take stock, organizing what they’ve collected and packing it as tightly and securely so it can make the several thousand-mile trip to Ukraine.
Offering direct aid
With four shipments under its beltand on-the-ground partnerships in and around Kyiv, Cincy4Ukraine has worked out a reliable method to send direct, humanitarian aid from Cincinnati to Ukraine.
“As far as I know, we’re the only organization in Ohio,” Nemiroskva De Santos said.
A native of Kyiv herself, now living in Cincinnati, Nemiroskva De Santos said she’s amazed at what her organization has done over the past year.
“I never imagined how much support we can get once we come out,” she said.
Cincy4Ukraine’s most recently went out in November
In the days after Russia’s initial invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Nemiroskva De Santos said dozens of people with Ukrainian heritage or a connection to the country came together to brainstorm ways to help.
“We organized the first protest down in Loveland, and 200 people showed up,” she said. “And by the 28th that’s when our mayor Aftab [Puerval] gave his first speech in support of Ukrainians.”
Then by March, Cincy4Ukraine was born. Nemiroskva De Santos said they collected donations and put together their first shipment of humanitarian aid and medical supplies to Ukraine later that month.
Since then, they haven’t stopped because the war hasn’t stopped.
“By the time we hit July,” she said. “It was just difficult comprehending that it’s like it’s almost six months. It’s nonstop, It’s constant work.”
The aid is expensive. However, Nemiroskva De Santos said the last shipment cost about $17,000 to get 11 tons of aid from Cincinnati to a shipping facility in New York, to Poland, into trucks to cross the border into Ukraine.
To her, however, the effort is worth it, not only because it meets the county’s need, but because it shows Ukraine who the people of Cincinnati and the United States are.
“When you see the desperate mother who never was hoping at this point to receive anything for their child receiving like a walker, and now her child, a four-year-old son can actually walk and smile again that was absolutely like a speechless moment,” she said. “It matters, and it does make a difference there.”
Support for the sister city
Ukraine also found a unique ally through Cincinnati’s Sister Cities Partnership. Since 1989, Cincinnati and the eastern city of Kharkiv have maintained a partnership between their local governments.
Bob Herring, the president of the partnership, has been working to remain in touch with local government officials and the Kharkiv Red Cross to get accurate information about what the city is going through and what it needs.
“We’re just sixteen folks that have developed friendships with people in Kharkiv and are standing by them in their moment of need,” he said.
Through the past year, the partnership has raised more than half a million dollars to help support humanitarian aid efforts in Kharkiv and has worked to lobby the local, state and U.S. government asking officials to remain committed to supporting the war effort and accepting refugees.
Kharkiv was an early target of Russian attacks and remains under intermittent attacks, but Herring said conditions have improved enough to try to encourage cultural exchange programs once again.
Herring updates a city council committee with the work of the sister cities’ partnership
Two runners from Kharkiv are expected to come to Cincinnati to run the city’s Flying Pig Marathon, including a man wounded in the war, who is raising money and awareness about the need for rehabilitation centers in Ukraine. It will be the first cultural exchange visit between the two cities since the pandemic.
“They’re coming to demonstrate that our friendship is strong, and it’s important for us to be connected and a marathon is one way that we can do that,” Herring said.
According to Herring, city officials have also requested representatives from Cincinnati visit Kharkiv as a show of support.
“Because of the partnership, because of the friendship, and because of the tremendous boost to morale that it would give the people of Kharkiv,” he said. “That here there are people from their sister city who made the journey under some pretty serious conditions to be there to be with them during this time.”
Herring said he expects that kind of visit is still a way off, as Ukraine is still waiting to see what will come of Russia’s spring offensive.
“It’s still very risky to go,” he said. “Kharkiv is shelled weekly.”
One year into war
Returning from Kyiv in February, Nemiroskva De Santos found it difficult to explain what it’s like to be in a country entrenched in war, with no end in sight.
She recalled hearing the air raid sirens go off for the first time and taking cover with her husband.
“I’m sitting in a bomb shelter and I’m hearing all this noises and planes,” she said. “It’s constant. It’s unfortunately constant.”
A year into Russia’s invasion, she said she understands the fatigue some Americans may feel at hearing the news or seeing images out of her home country. To a degree, she said she’s grown tired too. Nemiroskva De Santos said she’s spent nearly every weekend since the invasion working on something for Cincy4Ukraine.
“It’s like, do I have life?” she said. “But being there, even for like two minutes, the whole world has been turned upside down. That February day did not stop. It’s kept going and for every single Ukrainian it’s kept going.”
She said she can’t stop either and even when the war is over; she expects the need will continue. That’s why Nemiroskva De Santos plans to continue putting together aid packages, maintain contact on the ground in Ukraine, and organize for as long as she can.
“Just being there for like two minutes, you can see the whole world has been turned upside down,” she said.
