Eagan parishioners welcome Ukrainians

St. Thomas Becket members host

Ukrainian adults and children

By Barb Umberger The Catholic Spirit

Launched in February 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has brought physical destruction and turmoil. As of April 2023, Ukraine’s government reports more than 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or injured, while more than 8,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and more than 13,000 injured. More than 19,500 Ukrainian children have been abducted.

Men left their homes to fight for their homeland, creating family, financial and emotional upheaval. Many women and children chose to stay in Ukraine; others sought refuge outside their country.

Several months after the invasion began, a parishioner of St. Thomas Becket in Eagan contacted a staff member and asked how the parish could support Ukrainian refugees. The request was forwarded to the Spirit of Justice, the parish’s social justice committee. Members started meeting about what parishioners could do to help.

The parish has always had an “all are welcome” philosophy and “a strong social justice contingent,” said Mary Fox, a parishioner since about 1990. “We all felt, like everyone else, helpless, just frustrated. What can we possibly do?”

Spirit of Justice members learned of an organization called Alight, formerly called the American Refugee Committee. After the war began, Alight helped Ukrainians at border crossings and transit centers, then broadened its services to more than 1 million Ukrainians through projects, partnerships and financial support.

An Alight representative, Steph Koehne, met with about 60 parishioners last October and explained its private sponsorship program, including details on how it could help bring refugees to the U.S. for up to two years. They could work when they arrived, with no need to first wait for a green card. A second informational meeting took place in November.

Once people from the parish decided to work with Alight, which fits with the parish mission statement and values, the organization sent private sponsorship guide Ana Nikolaieva to be a resource for each of three sponsor groups. Nikolaieva and other Alight team members answered questions and provided information and resources about the process as well as school and work requirements. The organization also supported each of the groups.

Alight helped parishioners match with Ukrainian refugees, who can place a profile on a special website to facilitate the best match, Fox said. Fox lives close to Eagan High School, so she sought a family with a student who could walk to the middle school or high school. Fox and her husband “volunteered their home” to host a family, she said. They

UKRAINIANS’ STORIES

Mary Fox and her husband, parishioners of St. Thomas Becket in Eagan, opened their home to Tetiana Solovei and her two schoolage children. By coincidence, Solovei’s cousin, Maryna Topchii, and her two children were resettled a few miles away.

Through an interpreter, Solovei said she came to the U.S. from Kyiv with her children because “almost the whole winter,” they had no light, no electricity, no heat. “And it was hard with money … especially during the winter, and every work you have back in Ukraine is low income,” she said. She said it became difficult to cover expenses for the children or even electricity.

Solovei said that the children’s education in Ukraine was “hard” because with every air raid siren, the children needed to go to the basement, stopping classes. Solovei’s husband stayed behind to serve in territorial defense.

When Solovei learned her cousin arrived in the U.S., “they decided it’s a good thing and they can come here and start a new life.” took in Tetiana Solovei and her two school-age children.

Background checks are run on host families so refugee families know they will arrive in “a safe environment,” Nikolaieva said. Host families attend special information sessions that go over common questions they might field — such as any need for Social Security numbers or translation resources.

Sometimes a session addresses “the nuts and bolts,” Nikolaieva said, and other times “we have really fun discussions” that relate to Ukrainian culture.

Alight, which responds to humanitarian disasters and crises throughout the world, saw the program to resettle Ukrainians in the U.S. as an opportunity to empower and encourage Americans who want to do something, Nikolaieva said. Staff members held information sessions where they knew there was fertile ground for people who want to help and make a difference, she said.

“And the Catholic community, honestly, in these parishes are such powerful places of finding people whose hearts are big and (there is a) desire to help,” Nikolaieva said. “So, it made the perfect match.”

The first Ukrainian family hosted by a St. Thomas Becket family arrived in January. Parish families have hosted 15 adults and children so far, with a 16th, an adult woman, arriving in mid-July.

Fox’s group has about 20 members, including a leader to keep people organized and other individuals who contribute important knowledge, she said. One person “has taken over the health care piece,” because the refugees receive health care services when they arrive, she said. “We had a finance committee,” Fox said, “a housing committee, information on benefits like SNAP, … a welcome and orientation team, (a) housing and basic necessities (team), an education and language team.” One priority was finding opportunities for the Ukrainians to learn English.

“Well, it turns out in Eagan, through District 196, you can learn English for free,” Fox said. The Ukrainian moms in her group attend classes to learn English from 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Thursday, she said. Another group member helps with the work authorization process, she said.

“It’s been really cool to see this group of people come together and get this figured out,” Fox said. “The end result has been just this phenomenal group of people through our church who are very involved in social justice and have come together and done an amazing job.”

Through an interpreter, Oksana Kopernyk recalled going for a walk with her children in western Ukraine, which was considered safer than other parts of the country, when air raid sirens started. And Kopernyk and her two children were in an unfamiliar city. “They just started to cry because they didn’t know where to hide and what to make (of it), so that’s when (we) decided to move out of Ukraine to Ireland.”

She and her children first moved to Dublin, then Cork, while her husband stayed in Ukraine. While in Ireland, Kopernyk learned about Alight and “this amazing sponsor group” at St. Thomas Becket, with one group led by parishioners Pierce and Teri Vatterott. After nine months of being separated, Kopernyk, her husband and their children moved to Minnesota.

Kopernyk said when they moved to Minnesota, “they couldn’t even imagine to meet these amazing people here and that they are hosting them like a family.” A retired plastic surgeon donated a house for them to live in near St. Joseph in West St. Paul. “The priests have come over and that community now has reached out to be supportive as well,” Pierce Vatterott said.

Kopernyk said every family member who decides to leave Ukraine is first thinking about their children. “They just want them to have a safe childhood, and they also care about their psychological, mental health. And they are not supposed to live through all these terrible things,” she said.

Kopernyk said she hopes her children will have a good childhood and have a chance to have a normal life here, to just be children.

WANT TO SPONSOR?

Individuals and groups interested in learning how to host a Ukrainian individual or family can contact the Minneapolis office of Alight. Visit its website at wearealight org and its more detailed page about welcoming or sponsoring at wearealight org/be-a-welcomer-sponsor-aukrainian-family