Anacortes nonprofit aids women and children at Ukrainian shelter

Nearly two years have past since the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. The war has claimed the lives of over 500,000 Russian and Ukrainian troops as of last August, and the lives of over 11,000 Ukrainian civilians.

Additionally, 38 Americans have lost their lives volunteering with the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

Amidst the fog of war, Anacortes resident Marketa Vorel traveled to Ukraine in the early months of 2023 with the intention of doing whatever she could to help.

While she isn’t a medic or combatant, Vorel was driven by a gravitational pull to help in whatever way she could, a drive that hit close to home as Vorel herself was once a refugee fleeing tyranny under the former Soviet Union.

During her trip in 2023, Vorel began laying the groundwork for robust partnerships with local Ukrainian organizations, which would lead to her creating the Sunflower F.U.N.D., a 501C3 nonprofit aiming to provide direct funding to the organization’s partners in Ukraine within 24 hours.

By the end of the year, Vorel had raised over $100,000 dollars benefitting the Sunflower F.U.N.D.’s Ukrainian partners.

Path Home

One of the Sunflower F.U.N.D.’s partner organizations is the “Path Home” women and children’s shelter located near Odessa.

When the Path Home facility opened its doors in 2018, its mission was to assist women and children facing issues of domestic violence or poverty, according to its founder Olga Pogorela.

With the Russian Federation’s invasion four years later, the shelter’s mission rapidly changed as Pogorela and the shelter began taking in women and children impacted by the war’s destruction.

“When we opened in 2018, I cannot imagine such a big problem,” Pogorela recently told the Anacortes American via a Zoom interview. “... But when the war started, we changed professionally. We changed because we have a lot of problems of the women and children who stayed in occupied territory, who left the occupied territory and were (sexually assaulted) by the Russian soldiers. And they have a lot of (mental health) problems.”

Reports of rape and sexual violence committed by Russian soldiers have been widespread in areas of Ukraine liberated from Russian occupation, according to multiple media reports.

Before the war, the shelter would support women whose ages averaged 30 to 40 years, Pogorela said.

“But now, we have young girls, 14 years old pregnant, 15 years old pregnant, 16 years old pregnant,” she said.

To aid the women and children at the shelter, the Path Home provides food, medicine, shelter, medical care and even the means to attend school virtually.

Additionally, the facility also functions as a humanitarian hub for the local community, and houses the village’s only bomb shelter.

Faced with the traumas and pains of war, Pogorela wants to ensure the shelter’s residents have everything they need to lead a normal life.

“It’s all free. If they come to us we change all their clothes, we even change their hair color, cut their hair, or even a pedicure. We pay because it’s a normal life,” she said. “They must feel like they have a normal life and (we) must teach them a normal life.”

“U.S. people must know about this, that we live in a strong life, and our girls also live a strong life. It’s a problem for all Ukraine,” she said.

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