During the Monday, April 4, meeting of the Livingston Township Council, resident Natalia Sawka shared her family’s story of moving to Ukraine, how her family is helping people in her native hometown, and how the Livingston community can help.“I was born and raised in Ukraine, formerly the USSR, in the small town of Chervonohrad,” she said at the meeting. “I still remember when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. I was six and my family, for the first time, could freely celebrate holidays and speak the Ukrainian language.”Sawka’s parents moved to the United States in 1996, when she was 11. She and her brother followed in 1999, and then moved to Livingston in 2000. She said her parents worked hard to buy a small home in town because their friends told them of Livingston’s excellent school system.“The difference between Chervonohrad and Livingston was opportunity and an inclusive approach of the community to help an immigrant,” she said.Despite not having a complete grasp of the English language when she entered Livingston High School, Sawka went on to graduate among the top ten in her class. She later moved back to Livingston as an adult in 2016, where she and her husband started a family.“When the Russian government invaded Ukraine on February 24, our stomachs sank,” she said. “We still have a lot of our extended family in Chervonohrad, including my 91-year-old grandfather. Being at a distance, we felt helpless and after a few phone conversations, it was hard to ask my family on the other side how things were going without offering any concrete help. Firsthand stories of casualties and refugees broke our hearts.”So, she and her family focused on helping her Ukrainian hometown, supplying funds to provide food for three daycares that are housing 150 people. Her family also opened their Ukrainian apartment to house nine people and is providing direct financial support to an additional 20 people.“This grassroots effort has taken the name ‘Friends of Chervonohrad,’ ” Sawka said, noting that her family is in contact with those they are helping in Ukraine to learn what they need.What she has frequently heard is that children need tablets to access remote learning for school. In-person learning is currently suspended due to the frequency of air raid sirens. In all, there are 2,000 refugees in Chervonohrad in need of this access to education.“As a mother of two children, as someone who ...
