At the end of the year, we hosted a fundraiser event called “Art Night for Ukraine”. Alyona Owens wrote a nice post on it. Please, click here to read it.
After the guests were gone and photographs of Ukrainian revolution were taken off the walls I looked around and felt peace. This was good.
Ever since I moved from Seattle, WA to Salt Lake City, UT I was trying to get in touch with local people who cared about Ukraine and its situation. Only four months later a friend of mine, Marina, contacted me saying she’d be visiting from Kiev and she would bring an art piece she has created during the Revolution of Dignity.
Being an award winning and talented photographer she created a canvas full of symbols, stories, and hope. She devoted it to Heavenly hundred ( first 100 people who got killed in Kiev during the revolution of 2014).
We knew we had to act. We invited everybody we knew in Utah state who were somehow attached to or involved with Ukraine. And so the first meeting happened.
Stories were shared, tears were cried out, and a group was born.
We decided to organize a fundraiser in a form of an art exhibit, which would bring awareness to the situation in Ukraine and collect money for two hospitals in Kiev full of wounded soldiers. Our goal was small – to provide wounded with the basics such as socks and thermals.
In six weeks we pulled off an event that didn’t cost us money but teamed us up and made us feel like we could do at least something, we could help in our small ways.
During our journey we met amazing Nkoyo from KSL “Cultural Connections” who kindly invited us to her show, John, a talented artist from Peru, kind and such a professional Kirk, who volunteered his time and talent doing a photo report of the fundraiser. So many kind and wonderful people helped us make this event successful.
We raised $1250 that night. Marina Lukach, the Ukrainian artist will send us a report of all the purchases for the hospitals by the end of November, 2014.
We will continue organizing events here in Utah and will be happy to see you!
