EVERETT — Liliya Dorosh decided she had to do something to help people suffering from Ukraine’s civil war after her former pastor visited from Donetsk this fall.
The realization didn’t come immediately. It sunk in perhaps a month later, over the holidays, as the Snohomish woman reflected on the life she had made for her family since coming to the United States as a refugee in the 1990s.
“I sit with my kids at the table and I feel so bad that people are hungry,” she said.
That led to Give Some, Feed Some, a fundraising campaign organized mostly through the local Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking community, often through churches. Their goal is to raise $10,000 in Snohomish County this spring. With that money they hope to feed up to 1,500 people daily in the conflict zone in east Ukraine.
Earlier this month, Dorosh visited Sulamita Slavic Church in Mukilteo where they took up an offering.
“They’re stretching every dollar,” she said. “It’s just basic bread and grain.”
The fundraising effort includes used-car donations. That idea came about through Dorosh’s family business, Assurance Roadside and Towing. Using their tow trucks, they’re able to pick up donated cars, even if they don’t run. While they might be able to fix some, most of the seven vehicles donated so far have been sold for scrap or parts to raise money for Give Some, Feed Some.
Dorosh grew up in Donetsk, a regional capital on the Ukrainian steppe near the border with Russia. Among the region’s most famous sons is Sergei Prokofiev, the 20th century classical composer who wrote the children’s ballet “Peter and the Wolf” in 1936.
As evangelical Christians, Dorosh’s family was subjected to religious persecution in Ukraine — first at the hands of Soviet authorities. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, her family was stigmatized as outsiders from the dominant Orthodox Church. The United States granted them refugee status on the basis of religion, Dorosh said.
She and her husband arrived in Everett in 1996 with their then-4-year-old daughter. They now have three children.
From working menial jobs, they moved up and eventually started their own towing and construction businesses.
“You’re so blessed here,” she said. “I’m not just talking about the economy.”
The last time Dorosh went back to Donetsk, about three years ago, she remembers it as “a very nice-looking city.”
Not so any more.
“Now, everything’s destroyed,” she said. “They don’t even have a highway.”
Until recently, Donetsk had seen some of the worst of the fighting between pro-Russian insurgents and the Ukrainian military. An estimated two-thirds of the industrial city’s nearly 1 million pre-war population has fled since the conflict began about a year ago. The United Nations Refugee Agency estimates that 1.6 million people have been displaced by the conflict from eastern Ukraine. The estimated death toll now exceeds 6,000, United Nations officials estimate.
Dorosh’s former pastor, the Rev. Sergey Yakovlev, is a bishop who oversees evangelical churches in the Donetsk area. His visit to the Pacific Northwest during the fall conveyed the human toll from the war. He told Dorosh of people lining up for four of five hours in the cold to get a meal.
“Stores are not functioning there anymore,” she said. “They have shortages of food daily.”
Donations from Washington, Oregon, California and many other places have helped Yakovlev serve meals to hundreds of people every day.
Getting food supplies through guarded checkpoints is one of the most dangerous aspects of the humanitarian mission, she said.
While grassroots efforts have tried to use local knowledge to get aid to people in the war zone, U.S. political leaders have tried to exert geopolitical influence.
U.S. humanitarian assistance to Ukraine has surpassed $38 million. Total U.S. aid for Ukraine’s military, economic recovery and long-term reforms totals more than $355 million.
On Monday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution calling on President Barack Obama to provide Ukraine with military assistance to defend against Russia and Russian-backed insurgents. Nine of Washington’s 10 House members were present for the vote and all supported the resolution.
U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., visited Ukraine in December. That trip mainly focused on national security issues. The large Ukrainian diaspora in Washington’s 2nd Congressional District keeps him aware of the humanitarian aspects of the crisis. Census figures show that his constituency ranks 16th among 435 House Districts for the number of people of Ukrainian ancestry.
“I recently spoke to leaders in the Ukrainian-American community in our state about Russia’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine,” Larsen said. “They want the United States’ help to support Ukraine’s democracy and sovereignty.”
Angelina Dorosh, Liliya’s daughter, said their fundraising efforts are focused on feeding people. They’ve deliberately steered clear of the political aspects of the war, and who bears responsibility.
“We are here just to help the people who have no water, whose houses have been destroyed by the bombing,” she said. “We’re not here to pick sides.”
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
How to help
A Facebook page has been set up under the name Give Some, Feed Some to help distribute food to people in the eastern Ukrainian conflict zone.
More info: Liliya Dorosh, 425-344-6841*
Correction, March 26, 2015: An incorrect phone number for donations was listed in an earlier version of this story.
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