JewishColumbus officials and OhioHealth nurse heading to Ukraine

On Mar 19, 2022

Nurse practitioner Jessie Kichigin, of Dublin, at John Glenn Columbus International Airport before leaving to assist refugees from Ukraine.

Jessie Kichigin always has wanted to be part of a humanitarian mission, to help people in crisis and improve the human condition.

It’s one of the reasons she became a nurse.

But after several attempts to sign up with various causes only to be told she lacked experience, she became discouraged. Then about a month ago, while binge-watching CNN coverage of the war in Ukraine — a country where her maternal grandparents live and which she has visited several times — her frustration overwhelmed her.

“When I was seeing that raw footage, it was really upsetting,” said the 27-year-old nurse practitioner with OhioHealth, describing bombings and desperate families learning about a loved one’s death.

On Friday, the Dublin resident’s journey to help refugees in Poland near the Ukraine border began with a Delta flight out of John Glenn Columbus International Airport.

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She is one of three Greater Columbus people visiting Poland in the next few days to deliver aid and hope.

Travelling separately Sunday on an unrelated mission are two representatives of JewishColumbus, which has collected $300,000 in aid. They’re bringing six suitcases, each holding 70 pounds of shampoo, toiletries and diapers.

For Kichigin, the mission came after she sent out 20 applications looking for ways to help. On her last attempt, with Love 4, a relief mission sponsored by the David Michael Foundation, came a resounding: “We would love to have you,” she said.

Organized by physician-pediatricians, the group will meet early Monday in Warsaw, Poland, before driving close to the Ukraine border, where Kichigin and others will treat the physical and emotional needs of refugees, she said. Wound care, respiratory issues and emotional trauma will be primary concerns.

As she set off on her 18-day-trip, three of Kichigin’s suitcases were packed with bandages, ointments, respirators and some orthopedic gear. Asked about safety, she said she’ll be provided a safety vest and helmet.

“I wasn’t as worried until they (Russian forces) starting shelling the western side,” she said.

Kichigin’s maternal grandparents have lived their entire lives in Lviv, a city slightly smaller than Columbus in the western portion of the embattled country that she’s visited five times.

Her grandparents, Igor and Valentina Sydorko, have no plans to leave their home, she said. And she won’t be crossing the border.

“Obviously I would love to get my grandparents out of there, but it’s their home,” Kichigin said. “They have nowhere else to go. And they don’t want to leave the country they love so much.”

A deep history of helping those in need

Joel Marcovitch, CEO of the nonprofit JewishColumbus, and board member Max Brickman, are scheduled to leave Sunday and arrive in Warsaw on Monday, meeting up with 14 members of the Jewish Federations of North America.

The local group, representing some 20,000 Jewish people living in Greater Columbus, will make the five-hour trip to the Ukrainian border to bring aid and comfort to some of the 20,000 refugees arriving daily after fleeing their homes in the war-ravaged country, Marcovitch said.

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The national group has raised $28 million, exceeding its goal by $8 million, he said.

“We’re supporting our Jewish families on the ground,” Marcovitch said. “But the services are not being solely distributed just to Jewish people. No one will be denied a hot meal.”

Jews have a deep history of persecution, he said, noting how dozens of Jewish-Ukrainian families came to Columbus following the dismantling of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

“We have an unbelievably rich history in social justice and helping our neighbors out. We have an obligation to do this,” Marcovitch said.

He said that his hope is to be “emissaries for our community and to bear witness to the victims, some of whom are Holocaust survivors who were living in Ukraine and now they have to flee again.”

The care items they’ll bring from Columbus have special meaning, both for those who give and receive them, he said.

“When they take something from their home here, a package of diapers or bar of soap, they know that it’s going into the hands of a Ukrainian mother who has lost everything because of this war,” Marcovitch said. “It tells them, ‘The Jewish community in Columbus, Ohio, cares about you.

“We want people to really feel that they are part of the humanitarian aid that is going on, even though they are thousands of miles away … to feel empowered by that.”

Brickman, a venture capitalist from German Village, said he has ancestral roots in Ukraine from both sides of his family. And his sister, Laura Brickman, worked for the former Kyiv Post newspaper up until last year.

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Asked what’s driving him to go, he said, “It’s general disgust. … What’s happing there is concerning for Ukraine and also for the rest of the world.

“You’re hearing stories of 100-year-old (Holocaust) survivors that are now going back into the same bunkers that they were during World War II. And the behavioral health impacts are going to go on long after this war ends,” Brickman said.