Ukranian Refugee Sponsorship
Parkside Ranch
Born in Ukraine but living in Québec since 2013, Iana Shapovalova is a long-time member of the Parkside Ranch family. She was a camper at Parkside for several years and has served as a valued member of our summer camp staff since 2018 – including this year for the 2022 camp season.
Iana and her family were afraid for the safety of their extended family who had lost everything in the war but were still living in Ukraine – she had already lost an uncle in the conflict – so she worked hard to launch initiatives to help them leave. Parkside had the privilege of supporting her as a member of the family in her effort to bring family members to safety in Canada.
Through the generosity of well-known local artist and long-time Parkside friend Debbie Mosher-Roy (www.debmosheroy.com), Parkside had the opportunity to offer up at auction 3 beautiful paintings that Debbie created specifically for this purpose and donated, to raise funds to help Iana’s family re-locate to Canada. Greg and Pat MacWIlliam were supporters of Iana and the project from the start, and were very pleased to win the auction for two of the paintings!
Grateful to be in a position to be able to live out God’s love in a practical way, in addition to our prayers for their safety, Parkside invited our network of friends and partners to participate. A huge thank you to those of you who so generously responded – close to $5,000 was raised and transferred to the fund that Iana had set up to help her family!.
We are delighted to give you an update on Yana’s initiatives and the current status of her family – with so much tragedy and sorrow in Ukraine we thank God for the happy stories, and deeply appreciate Yana’s commitment to her family, to Parkside and to God.
- Through Yana and her family’s efforts and the generosity of people like you, three families from their extended family are now safely living in the Montreal area, with another two in process. One critical item that donations have helped with – Iana’s fund purchased a bus for one family so they are mobile and at least have a roof over them, with their home having been destroyed by the war.
- Through an introduction to Yana at Parkside Ranch’s spring ‘’cabane à sucre’’ event, Canada’s federal Minister of Agriculture Marie-Claude Bibeau intervened on their behalf with the Immigration department and corrected errors in their immigration application paperwork. The result of help by a Canadian federal Minister who truly cares about people – at least one member of each of the three families is now employed and helping support their families.
- Even with these three families now living in safety in Canada, there are still ongoing living costs both for these families and for other members of Iana’s extended family still living in Europe, in and outside of Ukraine. If you feel led to continue to help with these living expenses, we have left the link for donations open below and invite you to participate.
Thank you again for your generosity!