IlonaKwiecien of Jaffrey has returned from a three-week trip to Poland, assisting refugees fleeing from the Russian attacks on Ukraine, but she’s not done with her efforts yet.
Several of the causes she identified while on the ground in Poland have now been taken up as causes by the First Church in Jaffrey, which is collecting funds from the community to continue to assist the people Kwiecien met and helped.
Kwiecien’s parents were refugees to the United States, leaving Poland after World War II. She also served in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital city, as a military attache, so when she heard that Russia had attacked Ukraine, causing hundreds of thousands of refugees to pour into neighboring Poland, it hit her hard.
“As many did, I started to look for ways to support Ukraine,” Kwiecien said. “I wrote some checks, but I really felt in my heart a call that I had to do something more.”
Able to speak both Polish and Russian, Kwiecien said she thought she would be able to do the most on the ground. She looked at a few not-for-profits, but said nothing panned out. So, she decided to just go, with little plan, and see where she could help. She had some of her own funds, and when they heard about the trip, friends, and then strangers, contributed, until she had about $5,000 in a bank account to spend.
“I went, and I didn’t have any expectation, except to find where help was needed,” Kwiecien said. “Maybe I would go to the border and help feed people or translate, but I did not have a big plan. And it was nothing I had anticipated.”
Staying with the family of a friend in Kaniwola, Poland, and making side visits to nearby Lublin and Warsaw, Kwiecien’s funds mostly went toward small donations to people making efforts big and small to help refugees – whether it was housing them or providing food or transportation.
“Each connection seemed to lead to another connection to another connection,” said Kwiecien, who shared her experiences in a series of “Dispatch From Poland” articles for the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript.
Kwiecien has brought those causes back with her to pass on the connections she made with people in her own community, who want to continue to help. Some of that help has already started to flow to Ukraine.
One of the places Kwiecien made a donation to was the Rozmaryn restaurant in Lublin, which provides free soup lunches to Ukranian refugees, usually about 30 or 40 a day. While still in Poland, Kwiecien told a friend about the effort, and the Jaffrey Center Village Improvement Society decided to make Rozmaryn the beneficiary of fundraising at its spring dinner. Sixty people raised $1,300, and those funds were used to help host a special meal with Ukrainian dishes for Orthodox Easter on April 24.
But that was just the beginning.
On Sunday, Kwiecien was the guest preacher at First Church in Jaffrey, where she spoke about her experiences and passed the baton to the congregation to gather around some of the causes she worked with on her trip. The church has taken up collections to help support several causes identified by Kwiecien on her trip, two in particular.
Church members will be supporting one of the volunteers Kwiecien met on her trip was crossing the border into Ukraine to deliver supplies and help evacuate women and children, some who were in need of medical help or had been sexually assaulted. They will also be supporting a school near Warsaw, the EduTank Edison private school, which has converted one of its buildings to dormitories to house women and children, and is helping to teach them Polish and eventually integrate the children into the school.
The First Church has set up an account for Ukrainian support at TD Bank. Residents can make donations directly into the fund, which will be transferred to a Polish bank account established by Kwiecien and administered by connections she made in the country.
Kwiecien is also encouraging residents who want to help to donate directly to another cause she assisted, a couple who has been helping provide transport, translation services and goods to Ukraine and assisting refugees with housing in Poland. Residents can donate through the website lapigua.org.
Although she has only recently returned home, Kwiecien said is already planning on going back to Poland. She will be returning to the same area, she said, and will be checking in on the connections she has already made, but is also open to new ones. She expects to go in late June.
Residents who wish to donate to the First Church Ukranian relief projects may do so by making out a check to First Church in Jaffrey with “Refugee Support” in the memo line, and mail it to the church at P.O. Box 673, Jaffrey 03452.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.