In a quiet, gated community in Dana Point, a Ukrainian flag flies atop one of the houses. Inside, 9-year-old Arsenii and 7-year-old Mark play while their mothers Maria Kobylianska and Liudmyla Maksymenko sit at the dining table sipping coffee and nibbling on Ukrainian cookies.
Maksymenko is a refugee from Ukraine who came to the U.S. in June with her son, Arsenii. She’s become fast friends with Kobylianska, a Ukrainian American, and is grateful for the community Kobylianska has created for refugees fleeing the Russia-Ukraine war.
When Kobylianska moved to Dana Point from Chicago in December 2021, she joined the Facebook group “Ukrainians in Orange County” with around 600 members. However, she said, it was “super sleepy.” Whenever she posed a question to the group, no one would answer for 2-3 months.
Then, on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine.
“When the war started, it exploded,” said Kobylianska of the Facebook group.
It became a space for Ukrainians living in Orange County to discuss the war, ask questions and — as refugees started coming in — organize help. In the last year, the member count has ballooned to about 2,500.
Maksymenko, who now lives in Laguna Niguel, was one of the refugees who relied on the group to help her navigate life in the U.S.
With the constant sirens and the exploding rockets traumatizing her son, she made the decision to leave Ukraine. She left her husband and family behind in Uman (a town between Kyiv, the capital, and Odesa, a port city and one of the early targets in the war) and traveled to the U.S. through Poland with her only son in June.
“I cried a lot, and my son, I have never seen him cry, but he cried,” Maksymenko said. “I knew that it was not going to be for a week or two. I wasn’t going to see my family for a long time.”
Maksymenko and her son first moved in with a host family in San Juan Capistrano through the United for Ukraine program. Launched by the federal government last year, it…
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