Our community has a strong history of welcoming refugees from around the world who are escaping war and starting new lives in the United States. The current conflict in Ukraine has brought us a new wave of refugees seeking safety and fresh starts. 

Until late February, Stana lived happily as a corporate lawyer in Ukraine with her husband, a businessman, and their four-year-old son Eric. Their lives were shaken on February 24, when they first joined their neighbors in a crowded, freezing cold bomb shelter to survive Russian air raids. After two weeks of complete economic shutdown and repeated stays in the ill-equipped shelter, Ukraine began allowing women and children to escape to Poland. The men, including her husband, remained to fight. After a harrowing journey, Stana and her son found temporary food and shelter in Poland. After two months there, she obtained a visa to join her mother in Arizona. United Food Bank and its partner agencies were there to help when she and her son arrived with virtually nothing. When they arrived in Arizona on May 11, they turned to the Salvation Army in Mesa, one of United Food Bank’s 150 partners throughout the East Valley and eastern Arizona. There, she was able to secure the food, clothing, and necessities that her mother could not afford to provide. “I’m trying to stay in Arizona until the war is over,” says Stana. “I need to find a job, a school for Eric and health insurance. With the increase in inflation, it’s hard for grandparents to afford the extra mouths to feed and to purchase all the necessities for starting over.” 

Through your generous donations and volunteer service hours we are able to make a difference for good in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arizonans each year. THANK YOU for helping fill the shelves of United Food Bank so we can ensure food is available to help meet the most essential need of all families – including refugees like Stana and Eric.