What made you volunteer?

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, I felt a strong urge to help refugees that were leaving their homes and the life they had in Ukraine. I am Ukrainian, and even though I have lived abroad for more than eight  years, when the war started, I asked myself: “What can I do for my people, my country, my army?”. My family and close friends live in Ukraine, so helping as much as I can also has a very strong personal motivation.

How did you use your volunteer days?

I have volunteered in several activities: I met Ukrainian refugees at the Amsterdam Central Station, helping them address basic needs, translations and registration at the Red Cross and Amsterdam municipality. We even formed a committee and handed in a proposal on how to optimise the overall experience and provide safer and more inclusive conditions for Ukrainian refugees (once an operations manager, always an operations manager). Also, I helped a school in Amsterdam with entertaining Ukrainian kids, to create a comforting native-tongue environment for them. Finally, I helped with translations and volunteered on the hotline of the “Ukrainians in the Netherlands” foundation.

What do you learn from this experience?

I believe it’s important to remind ourselves to be grateful for cool things in our life from time to time. By looking at Ukrainians, who spent five days getting to Amsterdam from an area that is under attack–many with small kids and pets–I understood how fragile our lives, our happiness and our peace can be, and how fragile and unprotected refugees are. Refugees need our help.

How did you use your volunteer days?

I used my volunteering days to participate as a poll worker for my local primary elections. I volunteer for three days in each cycle: training/certification, day before prep and day of election. I work with the county officials in several roles of the election process including identification/validation, ballot handover and ballot processing.

What made you dedicate your time to this cause?

In my home country, elections are the last line of defence for democracy. While fairness is not always guaranteed, to volunteer is a matter of civil service. This responsibility has been with me ever since. While the stakes here are different, it is still very important for me. Democracy is something I do not take for granted.

What did you learn from this experience?

As this was a repeat of previous volunteering experiences, I would say it was more of a confirmation of how important it is to focus on democracy, as well as other very important subjects like the environment, health, etc.

What's the cause you've volunteered for?

I joined the board of directors of Denver Children’s Advocacy Center in March 2020, because children are very important to me. The NGO serves children who have been abused, neglected or traumatised by witnessing violence. DCAC coordinates multi-disciplinary teams of first responders to provide friendly, family-supportive services in one central location - versus asking the children to share their experiences over and over again to different agencies.

I am working closely with the DCAC to increase awareness of child abuse, and to raise funds to support services that cater to the children and their families.

How did you use your volunteer days?

I chose to spend one of my paid volunteer days to help with the DCAC’s cornhole tournament.

What has this experience given you?

Sometimes, volunteering exposes you to new ideas that make you learn unexpected things. Every event I participate in makes me more grateful for the community support we receive. I understood the power of people who gather, united by the idea of making a change.