Fundraiser

The lack of easily accessible shelter for students and staff is why Alisa and her mother, Vicki Hoodikoff, are raising funds to bring a military-grade bomb shelter to the school in partnership with Sozo Charities.

A silent and live auction will be held Saturday at the Downtown Hope Church at 255 West St., in Annapolis. The ticketed event, which runs from 3 to 5 p.m., will offer appetizers, drinks and a chance to make a difference in the lives of young Ukrainian students. Local businesses in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County have chipped in with auction donations like golf packages, spa treatments and local restaurant offerings.

Tickets can be purchased at sozocharities.org/charity-auction-at-downtown-hope/.

The shelter, an aboveground concrete structure designed by Hobbit House, a Ukrainian construction company, can hold up to 60 people. The shelter costs $53,000, and about $19,000 is still needed to bring it to reality.

The Hoodikoffs, working with the charity, are aiming to secure the remaining funds by the end of March in the hopes of seeing the shelter installed or completed by the time they return to Kyiv in April.

Alisa will be in Ukraine for two years with a ministry organization, and Vicki and her husband, Kelly, both former missionaries, will be there for a month. The family has lived in the Annapolis area since 2019.

For now, when an air raid alert goes off, school staff ready the students, loading them into a van to drive to the shelter. Minutes tick by, and it’s not enough time, Alisa Hoodikoff said. And sometimes, students and staff remain in the school, which only has tape on the windows to protect from potential missile strikes.

Debris from a drone that was shot down hit the elementary wing of the school, lodging into the side of the building.

The looming possibility of air raids or similar events is a distraction for the children. Loud noises from a water bottle being knocked over are enough to startle everyone in the room, Alisa Hoodikoff said.

“When something … is out of your control, it brings all kinds of emotions up, especially for the kids who haven’t learned how to deal with their emotions yet or are still learning,” she said. “So, it’s extra sensitive for them.”

Fundraising for the bomb shelter is one of several projects the Hoodikoffs have taken on over the last two years to help the country they called home for well over two decades.

After Russian troops invaded Kyiv in late February 2022, the family decided to travel back to Ukraine that April to provide humanitarian aid.

As of late February, 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in action in the two years since Russia invaded the country, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Once the family arrived, Alisa Hoodikoff began making art with the school students as a way to ease the heavy burdens on their young shoulders, and later began working with children and mothers who lost loved ones to the war.

Creating art helps form a powerful sense of community, hope and security in the uncertainty of war, she said.

“It’s been pretty amazing to make art in a time of destruction and brokenness,” she said. “It’s such a powerful thing to do, to create something beautiful in the contrast of what is happening around you, and the community and unity that it creates during a time like this — we can all relate to each other.”

The family has also worked to bring prefabricated tiny homes — roughly 180 square feet — to Ukrainians who have lost their original homes to the war, bringing back a sense of normalcy.

“They are just so grateful because they have something that they can put on their land, and it’s their space, their territory, and it makes them feel like they’re still at home,” Vicki Hoodikoff said.

Assistance to those in need is also found in faith communities, like the organization with which the Hoodikoffs served. Across denominations, churches are joining together to ask how they can help.

“You see this incredible unity and love, and people really laying down their lives, literally, in ways that you would not have seen,” Vicki Hoodikoff said. “That in and of itself says a lot, but it also is shaping the country and character of the Ukrainian nation.”

Those interested in supporting efforts to help Ukraine are encouraged to reach out to Sozo Charities.