Kiwanians in Canada help refugees from Ukraine thrive in their new country.
By Julie Saetre
Kiwanians have a heart for service — and in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, that heart extends to helping families in need from over 7,700 kilometers away.
In 2021, members of the Kiwanis Club of Barrie — including Helen Ellement and her sister, Cathy Locke — were deciding how to mark the club’s 100th anniversary. At a church service, Ellement and Locke learned that refugees from Ukraine would be traveling to Canada and needed places to stay. At the time, Locke had been preparing to sell her large home so she could purchase a smaller residence.
“So of course we just looked at each other,” Ellement recalls, “and she said, ‘I know what I’m going to do.’”
Locke offered to house some incoming refugees while they adjusted to living in a different country, learning a new language and finding employment. And Ellement thought of a way to celebrate the club’s centennial: spend CA$100,000 on service projects, a third of which would fund the refugees’ flights to Canada.
The club’s donation paid for six families — a total of 33 people — to relocate. And once they arrived, Ellement, the current lieutenant governor of Kiwanis Division 8, and Locke, now the club’s president-elect, led efforts to help the families settle in. The sisters gathered necessities ranging from bedding to paper goods, made doctor appointments, located a service that would help determine grade placement levels for the school-age students, and even helped find jobs for some of the adults.
“Pretty much anything you would do for your own kids, that’s what we’ve been doing for the Ukrainian families,” Ellement says.
Generosity rewarded
Meanwhile, instead of selling her home, Locke invited the largest family group — two parents and 11 children and teens — to live in the residence. Locke relocated to what became a lower-level apartment, complete with separate access; the family moved into the remainder of the house.
The families have not let this generosity go unrewarded.
“They’ve worked at every function that Kiwanis does that we need help with,” Ellement says. “So they’ve helped us as much as we’ve helped them. They’ve been fabulous.”
Now Ellement and Locke are writing letters of recommendation to help the families gain permanent residency in Canada.
“They’ve all gotten jobs, and they’ve worked very hard. They’ve become members of their community,” says Ellement. “They feel like family, and they feel like we’re their family.”
How has your club supported newcomers to your community? Let us know at shareyourstory@kiwanis.org.