‘Everything you’re watching it’s true and worse’: Rockford launches relief effort for Ukrainian sister city in crisis

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — Mayor Tom McNamara was on a call with Rockford’s sister city in Ukraine when he heard a disturbing sound transmitting from the other end.

It was a consistent beeping, almost like an old-school alarm clock. But this buzz was to warn the people of Brovary, a city of about 110,000 located roughly 15 miles northeast of the Ukranian capital of Kyiv, of a possible attack.

“I can’t tell if that’s for us, but let’s just pray it isn’t,” Lena Korovina, from the mayor’s office in Brovary, told McNamara, he said Friday. “She said they’ve just been going off nonstop.”

Brovary reached out to Rockford after Russia invaded Ukraine last week to ask for humanitarian aid. Specifically, it needs assistance with medicine, medical supplies, food, generators, clothing and sleeping cots.

“Many of the wounded from the capital city are in hospitals in Brovary,” said John Groh, president and CEO of the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau, which leads Rockford’s relationships with seven sister cities. “Their hospitals are overrun. That’s one of the reasons they need medical supplies and medicine specifically because of their proximity to the capital.”

Related: ‘One of the strongest tools we have when we feel helpless’: Rockford faithful pray for Ukraine

Groh and McNamara, along with representatives from Kids Around the World and The Community Foundation of Northern Illinois, called a news conference on Friday to announce how Rockford can support its Ukrainian sister city.

You can donate to the Brovary Relief Fund through cfnil.org or kidsaroundtheworld.com. Both the Community Foundation and the visitors bureau’s charitable foundation have pledged matching donations of $5,000 each.

“My phone has been ringing off the hook over the past few days of folks in our community wanting to help,” said Dan Ross, president of the Community Foundation. “It’s such a comfort to see what the good of the people in Rockford are wanting to do to get involved and help.”

The city’s support for Ukraine was evident at the news conference, too. While normally attended by a few reporters and photographers, Friday’s press event filled the City Council chambers with people gathered to support Ukraine.

McNamara said the city secured safe passage for financial contributions and secured information regarding routes for humanitarian supplies to be delivered.

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McNamara said his call with Korovina in Brovary was one of the most difficult he’s had to make as mayor. The call was initially to be with Brovary Mayor Igor Sapozhko, who instead called an emergency council meeting to allocate funds for Brovary’s response to the war.

“She told us a number of things: She said everything you’re watching it’s true and worse,” McNamara said. “She said mothers and children are dying. She said families are being separated. People are walking literally tens of miles just to have a safe night of sleep.”

Sapozhko emailed McNamara on Thursday. In the email, he wrote:

“Today is exactly a week since Ukraine accepted the battle with the Russian occupiers. Cities and villages are on fire, civilians are dying, and hundreds of thousands of people have been left homeless. The Armed Forces of Ukraine, territorial defense, volunteers, ordinary people and all the Ukrainian people are defending their land. Today there are no borders between our friendly countries. Today, Ukraine’s victory is security for the whole of Europe as well as for the whole world! We are aware of your sincere intentions to help us, so we appeal to your community. If you want to help Brovary, the Brovary Territorial Community, the Ukrainian people in our just struggle, respond. We need both funds and any material support.”

The city’s relationship with Brovary began in 1995, just four years after Ukraine declared independence from the former Soviet Union, after a soccer team from Kyiv visited Rockford and suggested the relationship. It was Rockford’s first sister city.

“This is why we have them. When we’re in a time of need they’re here for us, and when they’re in a time of need, we’re there for them,” McNamara said. “Our hearts certainly go out to the entire Ukrainian people.”

As a gift in the mid-90s, a group from Rockford traveled to build the first of two playgrounds for children in Brovary. The did not use wood in the build because of a concern that it might be stripped to heat homes during the harsh winters in the midst of a brutal recession.

The two projects marked the beginning of Kids Around the World, a nonprofit that builds playgrounds for children in poverty-stricken and worn-torn foreign cities.

The Brovary Relief Fund is one of several ways people in Rockford are giving back. Christ the Savior Orthodox Church, which held a prayer vigil on Monday, has also been collecting donations and UW Health SwedishAmerican Medical Center has collected medical supplies, McNamara mentioned as two of several examples.

“Our brothers and sisters in Brovary need you,” McNamara said. “We as a community, this is what we do. We see really difficult times and we stand up and we face those together.”

Donate | Brovary Relief Fund

To donate, visit cfnil.org or kidsaroundtheworld.com to make a secure online contribution.

Checks can also be made out and mailed to either organization with a note that says the funds should be used for the Brovary Relief Fund.

All contributions will be used to purchase and deliver goods and supplies through verified international aid organizations or directly to the city of Brovary for their critical humanitarian needs.

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas.