Selectboard member works to help Ukrainians

Kelly Devine took a trip to eastern Europe this summer that she feels has fundamentally changed her.

The fact that this trip had so much impact on the Charlotte Selectboard member is not so surprising when you consider she traveled to Ukraine.

Devine was traveling with the organizations Actions Beyond Words and Burlington’s Sister City Program with Kuyalnyck, Ukraine. She spent almost two weeks at the end of June and beginning of July with a group people who all carried at least two suitcases on the flight, each packed full of things the Ukrainian people need, such as emergency kits, vitamins — and dogfood.

In addition, Actions Beyond Words had a truckload of goods that was driven into the country from its home base in Poland. The relief volunteers couldn’t fly into Ukraine.

Her experiences in Ukraine have given Devine a newfound appreciation of how much we have in the United States.

The Burlington-Kuyalnyck Sister City Program and Actions Beyond Words will be hosting an event, “Stories from Ukraine,” this Saturday, Sept. 21, at 6:30 p.m. at Halvorson’s Upstreet Café on Church Street in Burlington. There will be a short documentary film of the group’s experiences in Ukraine, a silent auction of Ukrainian items and brief remarks.

All proceeds from the auction will go towards ongoing relief efforts and direct aid for Ukrainians in need.

Sister-city programs typically are set up for cultural exchange, but Burlington has decided to do something different with the program in Ukraine.

“We wanted to see if we could take the sister-city platform and turn it into something that can be more direct aid for what they were experiencing in the war,” Devine said.

One of those who was part of the group Devine traveled with was Adam Roof. “The stories we’ve brought back are not just about survival — they are about hope, strength and the power of community,” he said.

Roof first went to Poland’s border with Ukraine in April of 2022, not long after the Russian invasion started at the end of February that year. When he visited the first time, about a thousand people were escaping into Poland every day.

The group he went with took 30 hockey bags full of aid and about $30,000 in cash. It was distributed pretty quickly.

Then Roof began to work with some small nonprofits which grew into the nonprofit aid-organization Actions Beyond Words. He is now chair of the board of that organization, which has over 80 communities working on relief for Ukraine. Actions Beyond Words has delivered more than $2 million worth of aid since its founding in the spring of 2022.

In August of 2022, he went back. This trip took him into the country, where he traveled to Lviv, Ukraine, as part of a group working on old buildings that had been repurposed as shelters. These shelters weren’t very livable, so, using primarily money from Vermont donors, they built beds, dressers, kitchens, school rooms and art rooms.

After returning from those two experiences, Roof got a call from former Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, asking if he would be interested in setting up a sister-city relationship with a Ukrainian city.

Roof was a city councilor (2015-20) and former chair of the Burlington Democratic Party. He stepped down from that position in March to become chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

During his five years as a Burlington city councilor, Roof had done a lot of work with the sister-cities program, ironically including two trips to Burlington sister cities in Russia. When the war broke out, Weinberger shut down Burlington’s participation with its Russian sister cities. Now, he wanted Roof to spearhead an effort, setting up the same sort of relationship with Ukraine.

Although he is now living in Massachusetts, Roof said he remains committed to the Burlington-Kuyalnyck Sister City program and Actions Beyond Words, and he will be at the event on Saturday.

After Weinberger’s call, the first person Roof called was his best friend Colin Hilliard, who he has worked with on these types of projects in the past.

He and Hilliard have talked about feeling the responsibility of doing the right thing. They had decided: “If it’s the right thing to do, we should do it. We can do it. We don’t have families,” Roof said. “If you should do it, and you can do it, you don’t want to look at yourself in the mirror; you’ve got to go and do it.”

One thing that adds to the emotion of the experience for them is that they have a good friend who volunteered with them who was killed. Tonko Ihnat was a Canadian, who went to Ukraine very soon after the Russian invasion and worked with several different volunteer organizations.

Last September, Ihnat was volunteering with the aid group Road to Relief very close to the front line. He was traveling with three other volunteers when their vehicle was hit by shelling. Ihnat was killed.

Hilliard, who is 32, said one of the things he was struck by walking around is that he didn’t see many other men his age. They’re either at the front fighting or have been killed.

“We were in far western Ukraine, so that community has been very fortunate in that it has not been struck with missiles and bombs much,” Hilliard said.

Although they were far from the fighting, he said, they heard sirens daily, which is typical for the whole country.

There were power blackouts every day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. In the mornings, they didn’t know if there would be hot water.

They traveled to Odessa, which is a large city, and they had to go through several checkpoints. The group couldn’t take pictures of soldiers or military installations because those photos could be used by the Russians to find targets to bomb.

Even though their hosts did a great job of keeping them safe, Hilliard said, the war was always just below the surface.

“The Ukrainian hospitality is really incredible,” Hilliard said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced in all my travels, and I’ve traveled to a decent amount of places. It’s, bar none, the best in the world.”

The people were very excited to share their culture with their Burlington visitors.

“They watch the TV shows that we do. They play the same video games as us,” he said. “They want to be Western.”

The Ukrainian people want freedom of the press and freedom to worship where they want, and this is what they are fighting for, Hilliard said.

He was impressed with how, even far away from the fighting, everyone from all walks of life has stepped up to help with the war effort. There were lots of grandmothers volunteering their time by doing things like sewing camouflage netting or cooking MREs (meals ready to eat).

They traveled to a beautiful basilica in a city which has been bombed and attacked by Russian drones. The cathedral there was wrapped in metal mesh with wood and sandbag reinforcing to protect it from a blast. If the cathedral was hit directly, it would be destroyed, Roof said, but it’s wrapped and reinforced because if a bomb hit down the block, the concussion would shatter the stained glass and ruin the sculptures in the plaza in front.

“It’s a beautiful summer day in August, and there are kids playing in the fountain with air-raid sirens going off,” Roof said. “What an act of defiance this is for families, for kids to go out and play in the square.”

The people of Ukraine have realized that they can’t just run every time the air-raid sirens go off. He said, “I thought that was such a beautiful act of defiance, just by simply going through and having a normal summer day, like we enjoy here all the time.”

The group could not take pictures of this.

Devine said a memory that has stuck with her comes from a visit they made to a private animal kennel, run by one woman with around 50 dogs. So many dogs have been abandoned by families that fled the country or who are serving in the military that it’s a serious issue.

So, dog food is an important thing for the U.S. volunteers to collect and take to Ukraine.