Svitlana Blinova and Yurii Kushnir: Secular Saints of World Peace

Max Goller OK, Welcome to Sacred Legions. I'm Max Goller, and I'm Pat LaMarche. Pat, when you mentioned that Melissa Crick, who you talked to for your book Still Left Out in America, The State of Homelessness in the United States, would be joining us for today's podcast, I wasn't surprised. I figured we'd interview Melissa at some point. I mean, she held the Paradise School District together and worked tirelessly to keep schools open in the aftermath of the 2018 Campfire. But she's here today because she nominated Svitlana and Yurii to be our secular saints. And while we've interviewed international secular saints before, today's guests speak to us from a war zone in eastern Ukraine. Welcome to the show, Yurii and Svitlana. Pat LaMarche and Melissa. We're glad to have you guys. So Svitlana, Yurii, Melissa, it's a real joy to speak to you all. Melissa, maybe we'll pull you in real quick just to start this off. And you can talk about the phone call I got in what's the middle of the night to me, because you're in California and Paradise, Magalia, California, and told me about these incredible people you met and tell me how that happened, how that all started. Melissa Crick Well, thank you for hosting today and thank you for highlighting Yurii and Svitlana. Paradise California is quite passionate about them at this point. So as you're well aware, Paradise often gets requests to meet with recovery communities of every variety. We had a significant disaster and we are very proud of the work we've done post disaster. And so it's very common that we will meet with other communities that have needs and want to learn from what we did well and not so well. And so when the requests came to meet with Ukraine, quite honestly, I was a little confused. I didn't know what we would have in common and I didn't know that we had the capacity to commit to a week of sharing information with a community that's ravaged by war and not natural disaster. But, they came to Paradise and they absolutely stole our hearts, and we learned that not only do we have an inimaginable number of things in common in terms of recovery and evacuation and communication and maintaining communities, we also learned that Paradise had a ton to learn from Ukraine. And so through that week long visit, we developed friendships and business relationships. And so when they went home, I was unsure of how to help beyond connecting the Sister Cities programs and our schools with their schools and our city council with their city council. And so in a moment of frustration that I couldn't do more, I called Pat because when the Campfire happened, our story was largely reported and very inaccurately reported repeatedly. I think I read my personal survival story about 25 times before I met Pat, and I had never shared it publicly. And so we met through a mutual friend and we requested that she come to Paradise and that she help us tell our story in a way that reflected both accuracy, most importantly, but then also our needs as a community. And she did that so well. So we remain great friends. So I called her and asked that she provide that same help to Ukraine. And I'm so happy that we're doing this. Pat LaMarche Well, I'm really happy too, Melissa. And the gift I felt, and Svitlana maybe you can weigh in on this, the gift I felt from meeting the people in Paradise and seeing their courage and their good cheer, it was remarkable. And my book, Still Left Out in America is about homelessness. And it's about people who have a disaster that causes them to lose their home. And here was a city where in basically 80 minutes, 28,000 people lost their home. And it was a scale of homelessness that I couldn't, except for Katrina, Hurricane Katrina, which I also was at as a journalist, most people couldn't imagine. And so I have often thought that the homelessness that's being caused in Ukraine is just so horrific and unnecessary and cruel. And I'm grateful for this opportunity to talk to you and to Yurii, Svitlana. But Svitlana, I didn't give you a heads up about this ahead of time. So if you don't want to answer this question, just say no. But what was it like for you to get to Paradise? Svitlana Blinova Between my country and Paradise 10,000 kilometers and in Paradise I met people who also lost connections with their children when city was burned. I saw more than 20 bottles in Melissa's car and I asked why do you need a lot of bottles of water and after that we talked about this case when Melissa have created a lot of children and you know when you have this gas from fire you need to like filter and In this bus wasn't enough water. So after that Melissa, every day, has a lot of water in her car The same thing in Ukraine, we have a lot of lessons from the war All the time, we say goodbye to our children, to my husband. Like last time, we don't know if we will see each other today in the evening. It's because of the war, every day, more than 10 years in Ukraine, and we have three years of full invasion, so, trip to Paradise was for me like meet with soul mate. I found a lot of new friends. I can call them, I can talk about just our lives, just say thank you for your support and ask something. The second time it was a lesson about recovery. I saw this picture next morning after the fire. City was empty and totally destroyed. All city was burned. But after that, these brave people in Paradise met in city and said, we will rebuild the city. It is, it is, wow. So I believe more that we also can do it, can do that. So our first task is return our cities and second task, rebuild. I hope we will have opportunity to call, call to Paradise more and more and ask. Okay, we need more details how you did it. Pat LaMarche That's really remarkable. It is remarkable how they rebuilt. And then I've been back a few times and one of the things that's fascinating, I think, is, and often when I'm not back there, but just hearing the news, I'll hear about another fire in California. And I'll instantly worry about Melissa and the other people I met and the people I don't know, who are in California and being Los Angeles recently this year, pretty much entire neighborhoods also wiped off the face of the earth because of fires and long-term degradation of not only the environment, but also of the transmission of electricity in the United States. The electric company that caused the campfire. has pled guilty to the death of 80 people. And so it was a natural disaster that was caused unnaturally. So that fear is there, but it can't be the same. I do not believe it's the same as the fear of war. And it doesn't make it any less frightening to be a Californian, but it does make it really difficult to imagine what it is like to be in a war for those of us who have not been in one. And so Yurii, I want to ask you, what was that first day like of the war? Yurii Kushnir My first day in the war, February 23 was my youngest son's birthday. He turned seven years old. It was a regular workday. Wednesday we celebrated my son's birthday with my family in the evening and went to bed and going in a good mood with plans to celebrate more widely over the weekend. At 5:30 in February 24, in the morning, I woke up to a phone call from the night duty officer at the city council. He said, "Yurii, it seems that something has started. The mayor is calling an emergency meeting. Some kind of rumble can be heard from the site of Kharkiv." My wife woke up and asked what happened. I don't know why, but I answered her briefly, the war has started. I went to the bathroom, just a few minutes later there was an explosion at this house, shook quite a bit. Then I realized that this was definitely a war. Family, wife, son and wife's parents gathered together. We were all in the terrible shock. What to do, where to go, what to expect. And then...the second explosion. The family stayed at home, but I arrived at work at the city council. The mayor gathered all the emergency services deputies. All the deputies were on site. No one ran away. Our task was to prevent panic, inform the population in a timely manner, ensure the operations, the critical infrastructure. Was it scary? Yes, it was scary. We held our phones in our hands and read the news. We saw that the Russians had invaded almost the entire borderline. We saw the explosions were heard in many cities of the country. Air raids were ongoing. Some kind of nightmare was happening that we didn't want to believe in. But, alas, it was really happening. Pat LaMarche Yurii, thank you. You went to work and your children were home with your wife. Did they go to school or did they stay home? Yurii Kushnir They stay home because since first day of the Russian invasion, we deleted all school education. It's going to online. Pat LaMarche Yes, that makes perfect sense. Svitlana, what was the first day like for you? Svitlana Blinova It was early morning, I slept and my mother went to my room with my husband and she said the war started. I just took my phone and saw just one message in WhatsApp from Martin Asmuth, it's mayor of a small German city, it's sister city to my village, and he wrote me message, if you need a home, please take mine. I didn't understand why he wrote this message, but he followed, he knew about war earlier than me. So after that I went to news and I saw this news, this horrible news. So when someone wants to kill you, you should choose. You can freeze, you can run, or you can fight. I just bring all necessary to my children. Victoria, she was seven, for shelter. And after that I went, I also wrote her name on her skin. She went to the shelter with my mother because it was air siren. I live in city which so far from frontline so we have more time than Yurii for example when we listen air siren. And after that I went to city council and asked do you need my help? I can do everything what you need with people who lost homes, with children, with all things what you need. My husband went to find opportunity to join the army and after that he soldier and I helped cities looking for helpful opportunities and established sister cities. It was three days in that difficult schedule because it was all so new for us, yeah? And when I saw a picture from our capital you know about this rapes. We saw this news about rapes with children, with women. We saw this news when Russian soldiers kill people. I thought that I should save my baby and we went to Poland. When we were in railway station, I saw thousands and thousands Ukrainian people who lost homes and went to my city because it's far from frontline These people didn't have bags. They just use... Alexander Bed clothes, bed linen. Svitlana Blinova Bed linen. Alexander Yeah. Svitlana Blinova Bed linen. These people didn't have bags. They just use bed linen for all their things. These people was in in blood. It was it was very difficult for me. We went to Poland three days. It was long way because was really long lines on the border. After that, I needed just three days for all my life, what I need. Yes, I found flat, I found school for my daughter. I found co-working for my job. I worked at that moment for international project, which support Ukraine. And I had big opportunity to stay in Poland for a long time. But after that, I decided, after three days, I decided to return to Ukraine because I felt that I'm not with my people. I didn't do anything for help my country. So I found news that our army need a lot of cars. So I bring a car from volunteer in Krakow and try to bring this car to Ukrainian border for Ukrainian soldiers. When I met Ukrainian people, I decided to return to Ukraine. And I was in Poland just five days in general. Pat LaMarche Svitlana, I just want to emphasize a few of the things you just mentioned. First of all, you mentioned that you wrote your child's name on her skin. And this was in case some tragedy, some horrible thing happened to your child so that you would know that your child had been the child that was lost if that horrible thing happened. It's impossible to almost speak after knowing that mothers had to do this and fathers had to do this and that brothers and sisters had to know. And that the children, after a while, I keep in my wallet the little ID card that the school gave to my grandson when he became a first grader, when he went to his first year of school. And It was a little ID card and someone said it had his fingerprint on it. And someone said to me, that's not for his identification if he's alive. That's for his identification if he dies. And I remember thinking, oh my God, what a horrible idea. But luckily I live in the United States of America where hopefully that threat is not there. But for you, other mothers and fathers, their children were dying every single day. And so I think that's just such an important understanding we need in the United States to know how vulnerable your families are to this invasion. The other thing you mentioned was that Yurri is so much closer to the border and so much closer to the front line. And so I want to go back to Yurii for a moment. And Yurii, if you can tell us about those train stations, because you live in a town with a large train station and you were getting refugees who were trying to flee because you were so close to the war. So if you could tell us about that, those are the trains that later Svitlana would get on. Yurii Kushnir Yes, I live in the Losova city. This is the Kharkiv region, eastern Ukraine, or the city in the summer and spring and summer 2022. The enemy was on the edge of our community and the city was about 30 miles away. Now this distance is 60 miles, but we're all in danger every day. Pat LaMarche And the distance has grown because the Ukrainian soldiers have pushed the line further away. Yurii Kushnir Yes, yes, in fall 2022. What can I say about it? The first, I work in local government. I'm the secretary of city council. I'm working in local governments for 23 years. I have, I think, big experience in this deal. So the first months were the hardest. We thought so. We had a long, long February 24. For several months, I didn't understand what day of the week it was and sometimes what time of day it was. We had no days off at all. Every three days on the 4th, each of us had a night shift. And after a sleepless night, we were rarely managed to go home to rest because new tasks arose that had to be completed immediately. There was a response headquarters in the mayor's office that worked all day and all night. We had to arrange the logistics of supplying food to retail chains, bread, meat, dairy products, and so on. There were huge lines for fuel and gas station. Many gas stations were out of service. There was only one pharmacy left in the city, the municipal one. Medicines for it were obtained by all means. Our employees sat on the phones and called to sell warehouses to buy up the leftovers. Kharkiv was on the front line and a very dangerous place. It was shelled all the time, but essential supplies were still being transported to our city, to Lozova. The hospital worked without interruption. It did not close for a day. Yes, some doctors left the city, but the doctors who were able to provide medical care remained. The hospitals were provided with uninterrupted power, food and medicines. This issue was personally supervised by our mayor, Sergey Zelensky. His name is Sergey Zelensky, but he is not relative of our president. At first, we relied on supplies and internal reserves. Then help began to arrive from other regions and abroad. Our task was to distribute it harmoniously between hospitals and other institutions. A lot of displaced people from Donbas and Kharkiv came to the city. Now there are 13,000 of them. Our population is 65,000 65,000 and displaced people 30,000. They had to be accommodated and fed. Six compact accommodation points were created. They were fed and clothed at the expense of what the locals brought and then aid from the state and humanitarian aid from abroad came. There were food kits, personal hygiene products, clothing, reorganized registration of displaced people and aid distribution points. At the same time in the spring 2022,up to 60 % of the population left the city. The people of the community united. Everyone was overwhelmed with the desire to help each other. It became normal when you see a familiar person to hug them sincerely because people didn't know whether they would see each other tomorrow or never again. After the counteroffensive of our troops and the transfer of the frontline from our city people began to return. There was hope that the war would end soon. We believed in it. People were tired of being afraid. Business trade and the service sector have started to return. Every store or office now has generator for emergency power supply. The community economy has adapted to today's situation. I would like to separately mention our housing and communal services. They have provided and provide almost uninterrupted heat supply, water supply and sewage. Their uninterrupted supply of communal services and maintenance of cleanings in the city creates a sense of security and care. From the first day of the invasion, schools switched to online learning. We already had experience teaching children online during the COVID period. We improved that experience, taking into account the challenges of war. Teachers taught lessons from home, from shelters, from abroad, from places where it was possible to connect to the internet. The Russians stole all children's childhood. Instead of going to school, having fun, walking on playgrounds and parks, they are forced to sit at home and in shelters, shivering from the sounds of sirens and rockets attacks and seeing each other only through the monitor screens. Also, many of children have gone abroad and remained there. The suffering of children is compounded by the fact that many families are separated. Women with children in Western Ukraine or abroad. Fathers who work in the city or in the ranks of the armed forces of Ukraine defending the state. Long separation destroyed families. But the worst thing is when the children's fathers die, die in the war and they become orphans. We are trying to live and survive, supporting each other. Of course, it's very difficult, both emotionally and physically, to live in conditions of constant danger. The daily sounds of air raid sirens have become our everyday life. The threat hasn't disappeared. We've just started to perceive it definitely. We have suddenly become many years older. We will never be the same as we were before Russians invasion. Our city will never be the same as it was before the invasion. Pat LaMarche Thank you, Yurii. I think your phrase that the children had their childhood stolen is something we can definitely understand because so many people complained about the few months that their children couldn't go out and play during COVID. And for you now, it's years, years and years. And Melissa, I remember one of the great challenges for Paradise was that so many people had to flee and go and stay with their families around the country that the children all lost each other. And I can't imagine what that would have been like if it had lasted more than, you know, if the disaster just happened again the next week and the next week and the next week. Max Goller On Yurii's role in government services, I thought it was interesting too, that your role now isn't just about keeping things going, but giving people some sense of normality so that they don't feel that horrible pressure all the time. And just that comfort that it provides, that was astounding to me. Yurii Kushnir It's important to people feel safe. Pat LaMarche Oh yes. Yurii Kushnir Order is people feel safer. Pat LaMarche Yeah, I remember also a story from Paradise of a man who he because the fire companies were trying to keep the gas stations from burning. He's he fled to a gas station while the fire raged around him because he hoped that the fire truck would keep the gas station from exploding and save his life and to go to a dangerous place. because the dangerous place might be more safe than your home. That's such a frightening thing. The other thing you said that I don't think people understand, and we actually heard this when we interviewed Diane Davis, who had provided a safe refuge to people at 9-11 when they landed in Canada, when all the planes had to land in Canada because the US closed their airspace, which was the closest thing to an attack on the United States that people in my generation can remember. She talked about their prescriptions, how they could not take their medicine. And that is for people who have to have it. They have to have their insulin or they have to have their heart medication or they have to have, you know, any sort of medicine that I take medicine every day. If I couldn't get it, I would have terrible side effects that would eventually cause me to become, you know, no longer with us and to think that you can't get your medicine and one pharmacy is open and then that maybe that will not be able to be supplied. These are the tiny...enormous parts of war that I don't think anyone is thinking about when they think about what is happening in Ukraine. Melissa Crick I think it's important to acknowledge that for the many, many cities across our country that have experienced disaster, the similarities are so profound. The medications or even things like pets, what happens to your pets when you're evacuating to the train station. And I just wanted to acknowledge that the idea that Yurii and Svitlana and the rest of the group experience this daily is really hard for Paradise. We talk probably several times a week about the idea that our experience, you know, we ran for our lives for one day. We thought we would lose our children for one day, and they do it again and again and again. And it's devastating, and I will never understand. I don't understand why it's necessary. Max Goller Very true. Pat LaMarche Yeah. Svitlana Blinova Can I say something? Pat LaMarche Yes, Svitlana. Svitlana Blinova Thank you, Melissa, for your words. First deal what I did when I returned from Poland, I wanted just show to world what it means lost children. And at that moment died 106 children from the war. So I looked for 106 empty stoller. I looked for 106 strollers and we used our main square in my city. In my city was big media center with thousands journalists. And we just showed this 106 empty strollers. Through this time when we made that died two more children, so we looked for two more empty strollers. This picture was in whole world newspapers, first page. At that moment died 575 children and today died two more children. I can't imagine what it's mean for parents I just saw today video from this big city Sumy where Russia sent two ballistic rockets and died more than 30 people. And I saw when mother hug her live daughter and ask why are your eyes closed and why are you crying? And this small girl, she she looks like five, she said something in my eyes. I thought will this girl see or she lost her eyes? I don't know I just think she's alive, it's good but can she save her eyes? I don't know. It's yes, it's and it's continue and no one can stop that. Pat LaMarche So your point is that for the children who, for so many children have died, but so many more children have been injured and will forever carry the injury of this war. And as you said, Yurii, and everyone who has lived through this war will never be the same again because of that. And this sort of impact, one of my questions and you've already answered it, was how you found out about the war, how soon you found out about the war. I ask that because we all see the news in the United States and we know that the war broke out, but the war never came to us. So that's almost the end of the experience. And you had to learn about the war and then the war came to you. And that's never been the end of your experience. And as people who are capable of helping. who are capable of doing something to make the world a brighter, better place, we need to know that just because we don't hear about it or because it doesn't come to us, we can't forget that it's happening. And your courage to share the story of what you're living through and the fact that you are both now in Ukraine with your families, working hard, Yurii, protecting your community, Svitlana, reaching out to around the world to bring people closer together to Ukraine. You're doing this even though every single day you must be afraid. Yurii Kushnir Can I say a words to my eldest son? I have two children. My eldest son now 20 years, but in 2022, my eldest son left Ukraine in Poland in March 2022. He was 17 years. Since May, he began asking me to return. I explained to him all the dangers of returning, and that when he returned and turned 18 in September, he will no longer be able to live. But he insisted that, "I want to be in Ukraine next to you." In June 2022, he returned. He graduated. from school with the gold medal and entered the university. He is here, he is Ukraine, now. And we believe our children is our future and we do all our best to save them. Pat LaMarche You're quite a man, Yurii. I appreciate you for being here. Svitlana, will you tell us a little about your City program and what you're hoping people in the United States will do? Svitlana Blinova When I saw that a lot of people in the world think why you stay in Ukraine because you can move to Europe, to United States, to Canada and find new home, a new more safe home. And I thought that people can't understand us. But when I was in Paradise, I met people who also lost homes. And I've heard that some people recommended to Paradise citizens didn't rebuild their cities because fires can be in future, yes, but these people decided to rebuild because they feel that they need to live at their land, their home, because it's important for people. So when I met little girl, Jana, she is 13, She's from New York. We have in Ukraine, New York. It's small village near the front line. She tried to evacuate with her mother and brother from big city near the New York, but Russian rocket flow in railway station and mother lost one leg and Yana the small girl she was nine, no she was 11, she lost both legs. In the United States was ready to prosthetic Jana and in the United States she had new home, she had new legs, she had great rehabilitation, best rehabilitation in the world. But when she moved from Ukraine to the United States she said me personally and to other mayor from my city and to doctors. "Please, I want to return to my home. I won't have chance to see my grandmother one more time. I want to live in my home. I want back in future. In my city, we didn't have rehabilitation center for children. We didn't have rehabilitation and prosthetic center. You know, prosthetic, it's like car. You should every year change to bigger for children and you should every few months check is your prosthetic good. So we had just not a lot of time for that, but we decided, our mayor decided to build big rehabilitation center for adults and for children. And we found a lot of money and a lot of resources with Sister Cities of my city of Lviv. And Yana returned to Lviv after the United States. At that moment, she is a really happy teenager. She ran marathon five kilometers in New York, in Tokyo, Japan. She has new friends and she lives like normal life in my city. So we used great experience from United States. We used your knowledge in medicine sphere. We used great technologies from Europe, from our sister cities also, and build that in Ukraine because it's our home. So I hope these connections with whole world for Ukrainian cities can help for more people, for more children just live normal life. Just find best experience in the whole world for our cities. Pat LaMarche So on the Sacred Legion's website will be information on how people can contact you directly, Svilana, and and sign up for the Sister City program. They can talk to their mayors and to their town councilors, and they can say, can we have the courage to just reach our arms around the world and be a resource, help with our education centers? Help with their students? Right now, I just want to volunteer to help any child in your neighborhoods who wants to learn to speak English and doesn't mind talking to some weird old lady in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, because I would be happy to work with children who want to develop a skill that we can help with. And if some people have resources they can share financially, they can do that, but also if they have other resources in their communities that they can help. I think that we need to love each other everywhere. We need to love our neighbors and when we need to love our neighbors, we're pretty far away. So I appreciate you giving us this opportunity to one of the things that Max cares most about in this Sacred Legions thing that he created is that people have a way to love themselves and nurture themselves and nurture the world around them. And so that's why he has this website with information about how people can get self-help and how people can help someone else. And so we're really honored to be putting your program up on that page. Max Goller And I was thinking of back to I really appreciate you sharing the list of sister cities that Ukraine has across the United States. But one thing that stuck out to me that that was kind of hurtful was there are two cities in my home state of Indiana and Monticello and Wabash, Indiana, that have partnerships already that were established by USAID projects, which unfortunately now USAID is under this horrible attack to remove funding. And I just don't think people understand all of the impact that that has on just so much that is being ripped away. And that is really bothersome to me. Pat LaMarche Yeah, I was at a conference yesterday talking about Ukraine and the whole Sister City program for my town. And one of the arguments back and forth, I did not participate in the argument because I don't know the answer, is whether it's USAID or US A-I-D. So for people who aren't sure what Max was just talking about, because they call it US A-I-D, it's the program that was basically just recently defunded by DOGE, the Department of Governmental Efficiency. There are a lot that, I don't know if you know Orwell, but the idea of double speak is pretty much, know, war is peace, love is hate, it's just taken over the country right now, it seems. But regardless of someone's political feelings and what people think about how the United States federal government should or should not be doing things. What is important is that we as individuals, we in our communities can reach out directly to people in Ukraine. We don't have to worry whether or not US A-I-D or USAID is going to be able to set this up or not, because we can set it up. And Svitlana and Yurii and Alexander the voice in the background, we appreciate you so much for giving us the opportunity to help make that bridge without it and hopefully it's just for a little while until our government can start participating again but we can participate as individuals. Yes, Yurii? Yurii Kushnir Can I tell some words to people in the whole world, USA, Pat LaMarche Yes. Yurii Kushnir about our feelings and how we see our future and what we do now? Pat LaMarche Yes. Yurii Kushnir It's very short. I want people to know that we fought, are fighting, and will fight for our will and independence. Our struggle and the right to determine our own fate on our land is being paid at a very high price. Every day, Ukrainians die on the battlefield and civilians also die from the shelling of residential areas by the Russians. We need help. Without it, we will not live long. We don't understand why the civilized world allows the targeted destruction of an entire people by one deranged dictator on the center of Europe in the 21st century. We are civilized, pro-European people. We don't give up. We work every day for needs of our military and the creation of proper living conditions for our people. We are restoring infrastructure. We are preparing strategic documents for the development of all communities in peacetime, preparing the ground for attracting investment and restoring the economy. Ukraine is not part of Russia and everyone who has been here at least once could see this. We are open and ready for cooperation. The first thing we need now is victory and peace. Pat LaMarche Yeah, it's my great wish for you, Victory and Peace. I think you're both so articulate and so remarkable in your ability to share tales of great tragedy, clearly, for people to understand, so that they can maybe pull their head out of the sand, which it's really nice to have your head in the sand or to try and push things away from your mind because they're so sad and they're so tragic and so many people feel powerless. But we have to take the power we have and help each other. The story you told, Yurii, of people being able to get back to their life, even though five times a day the air raid shelters call people to shelter. They still are working. They're still going to the cafe. They're still educating their children. They're still, they're courageously returning home like your son. Yurii Kushnir People just want to live. People just want to live. And dangerous, as we know, we are in danger every time, every minute, every second, like today's situation is in Sumy. But we want to live and we can put in the powers of life. Time goes. And every day we still we became older because all emotions we feel, it's inside of us. It's very, very hard. To public, we have to be calm and not to. We have to be calm, but inside, storm of emotion. It's hard, and our hill, I know our hills is worser than before the Russian invasion. It's not for, it's not about only me. It's about all Ukrainians. Pat LaMarche Yes, yes, thank you. Melissa, you wanted to. Melissa Crick I wanted to just, I'm glad that Yurii said that. I wanted to highlight why I felt that specifically that they were secular saints. And I think he touched on it quite closely there. Despite all that's happening in their personal households, each of the delegates that visited Paradise, they're still acting as community leaders. Every day, they're calm, cool, collected. They're providing hope and ensuring their community that everything's okay, even though it's so clearly not. And so I think that's something that should be recognized. It's not easy and we know that in Paradise and that's part of why we've become so close is those of us that have led in disaster, we know that you have to give a piece of your soul to make that happen. And so I just want to acknowledge that that's what they're doing. Pat LaMarche Thank you, Melissa. And I keep harkening back to what I saw of you when you're the president of the school board at the time. Are you still president of the school board? Melissa Crick Yes. Yes. Pat LaMarche Yeah, still doing it. And every single child in your school department was declared classified as homeless. Every single child in the school department, and you kept the schools going because those children needed school and they needed each other. No matter how far away they were, Idaho or New York, you kept them together. And to think about doing that every day, every week, while bombs keep falling is beyond the imagination. And yet it's the, as you said, Yurii, the nightmare you're living. So. Melissa Crick Yeah, I tell them often. Pat LaMarche I want to give everybody one minute to say their last words because believe it or not, we have been, we have ripped through our time to get to know you better. And I'm, I wish we had a seven hour podcast, but Svitlana, do you want to go first and make sure that we make sure we understand what you want us to understand? Svitlana Blinova So just one minute for final words, yes? Pat LaMarche Yeah. Svitlana Blinova No matter what going on between our countries now, I just want to say thank you to all Americans who supported us and still support us. I want to say thank you to US A-I-D because US A-I-D was built our civil society, big part of our civil society. So please, if you want help directly, if you want to say something. Just find Ukrainians, maybe from, maybe through my program Sister City. Also, you can find just Ukrainians in Facebook and write a few words. Just, you should be a human and support each other. Thank you. Thank you for you Americans for support us. Pat LaMarche Thank you. Yurii? Max Goller Thank you. Yurii Kushnir [in Ukrainian] Can I a few words Alexander I'd like to say a few words in Ukrainian. Max Goller Please do. Yurii Kushnir [in Ukrainian] I am extremely grateful for this wonderful opportunity to be with you and talk about the Ukraine. Alexander I am eternally thankful for this wonderful opportunity to be with you today and to share with you our Ukrainian life and our Ukrainian issues and problems. Yurii Kushnir [in Ukrainian] First of all, thank you to for initiating this meeting. Our visit to Paradise is an incredible experience. I am sure that is just the beginning of our cooperation. Alexander I would first like to thank Melissa for initiating this meeting and actually for initiating our trip to Paradise. My trip to Paradise was the pinnacle of experience. And actually I believe it was a, it is a only a start of the ongoing friendships and corporations that we are gonna have. Yurii Kushnir [in Ukrainian] In a week of in this beautiful city, people from Paradise became relatives. It seems that we have for many years. Alexander Although the trip lasted only one week, the people of Paradise really actually became our family. And I have this feeling that I have known these people for my entire life. Yurii Kushnir [in Ukrainian] I am sure that we have built a huge bridge over the ocean, through which we communicate and see one another. Alexander I'm confident that we have already built a big and steady and strong bridge over the ocean that enables us, that enables our communications, our friendships and our cooperation. Yurii Kushnir [in Ukrainian] Thank you, Pat, Max, for your interest in the lives of Ukraine. It is important to have and use any opportunity to about how we live, in war conditions in 21st century in the center of Europe. Alexander My thanks also go to Pat and Max for showing the interest in our lives, in our experiences, in our memories, in our aspirations. Thank you for looking into the life of plain Ukrainians who live in war in the 21st century in the middle of Europe, in the center of Europe. Yurii Kushnir [in Ukrainian] Thanks to the American people, we felt such support such compassion. It gave us lot of strength and gives us lot strength to fight on and understand that we the right track. Alexander I would also like to thank the entire American people, the entire American nation. During the five days that we spent in Paradise, we have heard so many words of support. We have felt the compassion and you have to believe that all this, the assistance, the friendship and the compassion, it gives us strength. It gives us strength to continue our everyday fight. Yurii Kushnir Thank you very much, you all. Slava Ukraini! Pat LaMarche And I just want to say hello to Alexander, that voice you hear that is the volunteer translator who got himself up very early this morning to help us and we appreciate you so much for being with us as well. Alexander You're most welcome. It's really an honor for me to be part of this project. Pat LaMarche Thank you. Max Goller It's an honor for us to have you, yes. Pat LaMarche Melissa, do you want the last word? Melissa Crick I do, always. I just want to say to your listeners, please reach out. Reach out to these amazing humans. Contact Svitlana about the Sister City program or reach out to Yurii or any of the other delegates. We're happy to share information. I promise you'll get more benefit than they will. And like Yurii said, it gives them hope. They need to know that we care, that America supports them, and that we're a resource. So please reach out. Pat LaMarche Aw. Wonderful.