MINNEAPOLIS — It's been seven months since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, forcing millions of Ukrainian civilians, to find safety and support with families in other countries, including right here in the United States.
"Our sponsor family today has been working feverishly to get ready for the Ukrainian family arriving, they've been raising money to help with some of the expenses these first couple of months," said Chris Kindler.
Kindler is the communications director for Alight, an organization partnering with Uniting for Ukraine, creating a pathway to allow 100,000 Ukrainians a chance to regroup and start over in the United States, with American sponsor families, like the Norlanders.
"We've been doing things with our refugee resettlement volunteer stuff for the past several years, and this opportunity came up and we thought we wanted to do something to help somebody in Ukraine," said Mark Norlander.
"Help them find a place to live, help them get work permits, or get signed up for English courses, help get kids enrolled in school," explained Kindler.
With just five days to spare...
"We were expecting a much longer period, so we had to get our home ready for them to live with us instead of finding them a home first," said Sharon Norlander.
The Norlanders welcomed a family of five to the Twin Cities Saturday, who lost everything while fleeing bombings in eastern Ukraine.
They'll spend however long it takes getting re-established in the Cities, but for the Norlanders, the biggest challenge won't be the language barrier.
"We don't know the impact that the war and losing their home will have on their lives, and (we want to) help them with their resettlement here in the United States," explained Sharon.
It's a new chance at life amid the unknown, leading this family to better days ahead.
"It's one relationship at a time that changes the world, and I hope that we have a wonderful relationship with this family and that our family can have that relationship as well," said Sharon.
Alight is working to recruit more sponsor families here in Minnesota to assist Ukrainian families, anyone interested in becoming a sponsor can click here. There's also a GoFundMe page setup where donations can be made.
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