Maine
Ukrainian families begin resettling in Maine, with help from local volunteers
On a latest morning, 2-year-old Kateryna Parashchuk chased a miniature soccer ball round her household’s new house in Auburn, whereas her mother and father, Sviatoslav and Tetiana, chatted within the background.
The Parashchuks are from Borodyanka, a small city about 30 miles from Kyiv. Tetiana is a nurse, and Sviatoslav labored as a dentist within the close by city of Bucha.
However when Russia invaded Ukraine within the early morning of Feb. 24, their lives modified instantly.
Talking in Ukrainian by an interpreter, Sviatoslav mentioned his boss known as him at 6 a.m. that day with a agency directive: Explosions are hitting Bucha, take your kids and depart now.
Sviatoslav, Tetiana and their three kids drove to western Ukraine to stick with household. In early March, they crossed into Poland.
They set their sights on attending to Maine and reuniting with Tetiana’s mom, who lives in Mechanic Falls.
In the meantime, right here in Maine, Oleg Opalnyk was preventing an urge to return to Ukraine.
“When the conflict began, I wished to go to combat,” Opalnyk mentioned.
Opalnyk is initially from Ukraine, and moved to Maine in 2001. He now lives in Pownal, runs a building enterprise and invests in house buildings.
Opalnyk mentioned he talked himself out of that preliminary urge to hitch the preventing, realizing that he might be of help on this facet of the Atlantic.
“So I posted on Fb: ‘If anyone there who’s escaping wants [a] place to remain, I’ll assist,’” he mentioned.
He started with the Parashchuks. When he discovered that the household was prepared to return to the U.S., he paid for his or her journey and provided to deal with them totally free in considered one of his rental properties in Auburn.
Like many Ukrainians making an attempt to achieve the U.S., the Parashchuks went first to Tijuana, Mexico, and offered themselves to U.S. border officers. They have been granted humanitarian parole, which permits them to remain within the nation for as much as two years, and arrived in Auburn on April 13.
With assist from his church neighborhood, Opalnyk furnished the household’s house and helped enroll their children in class, obligations sometimes dealt with by refugee resettlement businesses.
“It’s overwhelming, you recognize, infrequently,” he mentioned of the work wanted to assist the household resettle. “However on the identical time, I’m very grateful that I’ve this capacity to assist.”
Thus far, state refugee coordinator Tarlan Ahmadov estimated that only some dozen Ukrainians have made it to Maine. He mentioned some arrive on vacationer visas, whereas others come as a result of they have already got relations dwelling within the state.
“So they arrive as a household reunification. So there are a number of totally different paths to return right here,” he mentioned.
One other path is thru a brand new program that permits folks dwelling within the U.S. to sponsor Ukrainians. That program permits evacuees to fly instantly right here.
Ahmadov mentioned Ukrainians may also have the ability to get to the U.S. by the standard refugee resettlement program, however that may take as much as two years.
In the meantime, Oleg Opalnyk helps one other newly arrived household. Olha Kutniak, her husband Yurii and their 11-year-old son crossed into the U.S. from Mexico earlier than the Biden administration minimize off that route on April 25. They supposed to proceed on to Missouri.
Talking in Russian by an interpreter, Olha mentioned a volunteer on the border instructed they contemplate Maine as an alternative, and informed them to name Opalnyk.
Olha mentioned the cellphone name went so nicely that they modified their plans on the spot. They arrived in Maine on April 21, and moved into the house upstairs from the Parashchuk household. Their son is now beginning college, and Olha and Yurii are centered on securing work permits.
Opalnyk mentioned managing this DIY refugee resettlement operation is a full-time job, on high working his building enterprise.
However, he mentioned, taking in these households provides him a way of readability.
“I do know lots of people say, ‘I don’t know what the aim of my life [is],’’ he mentioned. “Effectively, begin serving to folks.”
Now, he’s engaged on reworking one other rental property to accommodate 4 extra Ukrainian households arriving later this month.
This text seems by a media partnership with Maine Public.