Hello. I am helping my friend Svetlana Ryan raise funds for her family (pictured above) who are trapped inside Ukraine.

Her family needs funds to access basic supplies and transport out of Ukraine. More specifically: clothes, personal items, transportation (airline, train or bus tickets), food, gas, hotel rooms, repair to any property damage, mental health care to recover from all this, possibly apartment/ house rental, and medical care.

Her 86-year-old mother (second from the left) and other family members left Kyiv last Friday to take refuge in a rural farming village west of Kyiv. Their plans to reach Poland were disrupted when her mother, her brother and his wife got sick.

Svetlana said, “My brother and sister-in-law earlier came down with 102-degree fevers, and now my mom is ill, too. They don’t have medicines.”

The last time she received a text from her brother in rural Ukraine was Thursday night, and her mom’s fever had increased to 104 with a heavy cough. So there is a concern that this may be Covid.

Svetlana is trying to keep up with her immediate family and other relatives and friends in Ukraine, about 20 people altogether. It’s been snowing at times this week in Ukraine, with overnight temperatures around freezing in and around Kyiv.

To read more about Svetlana’s family plight, go to this recent article published in the Union Democrat (https://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/article_e7fc5918-9cab-11ec-a6e4-8fd009c100c5.html).

Svetlana lives in Sonora, CA but was born and raised in central Kyiv when Ukraine was under Soviet Union domination. She is the owner of European Skin Care.