SEQUIM — “How can we help?”
That’s the question members of Soroptimist International of Sequim keep asking themselves, said club member Linda Klinefelter, as Russia invades Ukraine and more people are displaced.
The Sequim club received an email, she said, seeking support from the Soroptimist International Europe – Poland for the refugees, primarily women and children, coming from Ukraine.
The United Nations reports approximately 2.5 million refugees have left Ukraine as of Friday to neighboring countries, with at least 1.5 million of those to Poland.
Klinefelter said they posed the question of how to help at their Zoom meeting on Tuesday.
“When it came up, it was unanimous,” Klinefelter said of the 30-plus attendees.
She said for many, it was a maternal instinct to help.
“I couldn’t imagine getting on a train and telling my husband and son I’d never see them again,” Klinefelter said.”
Sequim club members wired $30,000 to the Poland club on Thursday with $10,000 from Soroptimist International of Sequim’s general fund and another $20,000 from its individual members.
According to Soroptimist International Europe online, support has gone to delivering emergency humanitarian goods to refugees.
“Everyone I talk to, the chatter among a lot of us, is we want to do something,” Klinefelter said.
“People just don’t know what to do.”
Soroptimist International issued a statement on March 4 standing in solidarity with Ukraine.
“War is never gender-neutral. Women and girls in all their diversity are always disproportionately affected by war, and it is no different in this conflict,” the statement said.
”The projections that millions will be displaced and will become refugees are being realised with thousands fleeing daily. Many of those on the move are women and girls; specific, targeted, gender-transformative programmes must be immediately developed and implemented to ensure that their lives, hopes and dreams are not irreparably damaged by this war.”
Klinefelter said the Sequim club supports women and girls in Clallam County in many ways, and they felt there was a significant need for Ukrainian women and girls, too.
She said they know their funds help boys, too, through efforts at the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula and other agencies, and internationally as refugee families seek support.
It’s undetermined if the club will pursue further funding support, Klinefelter said.
For more information on charities supporting Ukraine refugees, visit the Better Business Bureau’s give.org.
For more about theSoroptimist International of Sequim, see https://sisequim.org/.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at mnash@sequimgazette.com.
