Uniontown native and Ukrainian wife launch grassroots effort
Courtesy of Zack Sawaka
In 2016, Zack Sawka (back row, far right), Natalia Sawka (back row, second from left) and Natalia’s brother Roman Malantchouk (back row, next to Zack) visited Chervonohrad, Ukraine. They are pictured with Natalia’s extended family in a garden.
Courtesy of Zack Sawka
Zack and Natalia Sawka pose for a photo in Rynok Square in Lviv, Ukraine.
Courtesy of Zack Sawka
Supplies donated through Friends of Chervonohrad arrive to Ukraine.
Courtesy of Zack Sawka
Zack, Natalia, and daughter Anna Maxine Sawka are shown in this 2019 photo taken during a trip to Chervonohrad, Ukraine.
Courtesy of Zack Sawka
Baby formula purchased by friends in Poland to help support Ukrainian refugees.
A former Uniontown resident and his Ukrainian wife are filling the specific needs of refugees who fled their war-torn towns into the west.
Zack and Natalia Sawka launched Friends of Chervonohrad shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, driven by a desire to help family members. The Sawkas’ connections in western Ukraine enable them to speak directly with refugees to identify both their immediate and long-term needs.
“Shortly after the war broke out, we realized this is going to be pretty bad. There are going to be issues. We really were expecting the worst,” he said.
Natalia Sawka moved from Chervonohrad with brother, Roman Malantchouk, and their parents when she was 14. The family settled in New Jersey where she eventually met her husband at work, a chemical engineering firm. Zack Sawka graduated from Uniontown Area High School and moved to New Jersey to work for the firm after graduating from Lehigh University in Bethlehem. The Sawkas, Malantchouk and two other Chervonohrad natives lead the New Jersey-based organization.
The Sawkas live in Livingston with their two children.
Zack said about 60,000 people have flooded into the small town of Chervonohrad, Ukraine, and nearly every building is filled with refugees.
“There’s not a free apartment in town. It’s full of refugees,” he said. “They’ll continue to come. It’s been harder and harder to find places, but people are continuing to leave the east as much as they can.”
Natalie’s relatives opened their vacant apartment to refugees, Zack said.
Friends of Chervonohrad started as an online fundraiser to help Natalie’s extended family and grew into an organization with networks in the United States, Ukraine and Poland.
While Zack said Chervonohrad is “relatively quiet,” there is fear and tension that escalated after the bombing of nearby Lviv, the closest city to Chervonorad, on March 26.
“In Chervonohrad, they have air raid sirens routinely, so folks have to report to the basement, to bomb shelters,” he said. “There’s always that potential of a stray.”
Zack said they fly into Lviv when they visit family in Ukraine.
Getting supplies into Ukraine has required strategic innovations. Zack, who is of Polish decent, found a charter bus based in eastern Poland through a Facebook group that connects people to their distant relatives in Poland. The organization made contact with the bus company, which delivered a supply of grains and other donated essentials into western Ukraine.
He said the bus is no longer crossing the border due to safety concerns after the bombing in Lviv.
“Rightly so, folks are scared,” he said.
Since then, the organization made connections with people in Poland near the border who agreed to serve as shipping points. He said people in western Ukraine are able to move more freely across the border now, so the organization often sends donations to their Polish contacts for pickup.
The organization also uses a Ukrainian shipping company based in New Jersey that connects Ukrainians to their friends and family members “in normal times.” New Jersey has a large number of Ukrainian immigrants, Zack said.
“It’s not easy. It’s not like we’re used to,” he said of shipping.
Another challenge has been securing medical supplies to send to refugees. Zack said there is a widespread need for insulin, and others with serious medical conditions like cancer are in critical need of medications. The organization is seeking contacts who can help secure those medications to send to Ukraine. They are also looking for ways to expand their networks in delivering necessities to Ukraine.
He said they have been moved by the outpouring of support. They raised about $75,000 so far, but, he said “the need is endless.”
“It’s a drop in the bucket relative to the need,” he said. “The refugees have lost their homes. They have nowhere to go back to.”
While the organization is focused on meeting the immediate needs of refugees, he said they hope to continue serving displaced Ukrainians as they enter the next stage of their lives in areas like job placement, relocation, and skills building.
“People aren’t going to be able to return to their homes for years and years. We started this to help the family, but we’re going to keep this thing going as long as we can,” he said. “Right now, it might be ‘Where do we get the next shipment of food?’ But the needs will transform over time.”
He said the organization has been a way for him, his wife and her family to channel their anguish over the war into aid. Her parents live nearby them in New Jersey, he said, and often communicate with relatives in Ukraine.
“Everyone felt powerless when it happened – not only us, but people who have no ties to Ukraine. They see it, they see the tragedy, but they have no idea what to do. They feel powerless,” he said.
Zack said the organization’s direct connections to Ukraine enable donors to see the impact of their contribution.
He said his wife and her family feel the magnitude of the problem when talking to relatives in Ukraine.
“I think turning this compassion we feel into action is really key,” he said.
He said his wife’s Ukrainian hometown is “eerily similar” to Uniontown. The towns have a similar population, and Chervonohrad is located about the same distance from Lviv as Uniontown is from Pittsburgh. Chrvonohrad’s main industry is coal mining, he said. Whenever he visits, he said he feels “at home.”
“The people are very nice, hardworking people, just like Uniontown,” he said. “They’re very grateful for the help, but they just want to work and live a normal life.”
For more information, to donate or offer other assistance, visit www.friendsofchervonohrad.com or their Instagram page @Friendsofchervonohrad.