Ukrainians of Utah, help these kids

On March 28th, I went to Warsaw, Poland, for five weeks with a volunteer group offering temporary hotel accommodations to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war. It was there that I met Eugene Zavoloka, 35, who had driven with ten people and a dog in one vehicle from Odesa, Ukraine to Poland. They had driven through Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, and Germany before we met them at the hotel.

Eugene, his wife, Olga, her sister, Julia, and their friend, Alona, quickly became my go-to for everything. They made countless trips to the pharmacy and grocery store to pick up supplies for the other refugees, and they could always be seen helping to serve food, get people checked in, run errands, and more. They were so supportive to everyone staying at the hotel, it was easy to forget they also had seven kids of their own. More than once, they helped me distribute things to other refugees without me knowing they didn't have those same things for themselves. I now know that it took every penny they had to make it to Poland, and now they must figure out how to rebuild their lives from nothing.

Since I left, the people staying at the hotel have been moved to a shelter for refugees. It's now been more than three months since our friends have had the luxury of sitting down in a living room or cooking a meal in a kitchen. With so many refugees, the cost of housing in Poland has doubled, and there is next to no availability. Jobs are hard to come by and only pay $2-$5/hour for hard labor.