Ukraine to Maine: Help students Ksenia & Marat

Ukraine to Maine: Help students Ksenia & Marat

Seeking your financial support to host two high school students from Ukraine.

My name is Eliot, and after 20+ years living abroad, including two in Ukraine, I now live and teach in the Portland, Maine area. In early summer, 2022, my friend Yana, who was born and raised in Ukraine, asked me if I knew any high school that would accept a student from Ukraine. I immediately reached out to my school, North Yarmouth Academy in Yarmouth, Maine who offered very generous financial aid to the student, a young boy named Marat.

Marat, 15 years old

Marat came and lived with me and completed his first year of high school at NYA, making great academic strides and playing on the school’s tennis team. Marat’s father, Igor, who is a lawyer, had enlisted in the Ukrainian army the day after Russia invaded Ukraine. Igor has been injured twice while fighting, including once in Bakhmut, and once he had recovered, went back to the front lines. Igor believes in the Ukrainian victory and said it would be easier fighting knowing that his son is in a safe place and has everything he needs to study. Marat went back to Kyiv this summer, to spend time with his mother and father who was on medical leave. Marat wrote to me this summer, saying, “It pains me to realize how many children are now orphans because of russia, and I am afraid to become one of them.”

I lived two years in Ukraine and every day when I read the news about the war, a bit of my heart dies, and I felt I need to do more.

Ksenia, 15 years old

So this year, I will be hosting two students – Marat and Ksenia, a young girl who lives in eastern Ukraine, 25 miles from the border with Russia.

Her father was drafted into the military. The sound of shelling is the background sound of Ksenia’s everyday life. Despite this, she is a top ranked student in her class, and she longs to be in a real classroom instead of learning remotely. Ksenia is a serious, award-winning dancer, whose favorite style is ballroom dancing. Ksenia has not danced much these last few years, because she feels a duty to help her country win the war, and to help her family survive. Her father’s agricultural business is close to bankruptcy because growing crops and working the land is near impossible when the fields are full of mines.

The war against Russia has drained the resources of these two families. Once again, North Yarmouth Academy has stepped up with financial assistance for both Marat, for a second year and now for Ksenia for her first year. These two families and I are eternally grateful for getting these two young people out of a war zone and giving them a chance for a better life, one that will certainly help them help their beloved country.

Any assistance you can give to help cover these students’ costs – travel, school supplies such as computers and calculators and books, health insurance, and living expenses -- will be greatly appreciated. No amount is too small, and every donation will help ensure these two deserving young people get the most of out of their US experience. Please share this GoFundMe with your friends and neighbors.