‘Because A Teen In CA Loves You’: Help For Ukraine Effort 1 Year Later

CALABASAS, CA — Somewhere on the constantly shifting front line of Ukraine’s unwanted war, a soldier has fresh socks and underwear because Calabasas teen Lexi Pendola didn’t look away a year ago when the kids she was tutoring in English were turned into refugees overnight.

Galvanized by what the Ukrainian students she had gotten to know on Saturday morning Zoom sessions were doing to help their country, even as screaming air raid sirens reminded them of the risk, the now 18-year-old Calabasas High school senior started the“Help for Ukraine” humanitarian effort to help refugees replace basic necessities they had left behind in their hurry to safety.

“Look at how much we take for granted,” Pendola told Patch in a phone interview last week. “Just like that, it could be flipped upside down.”

Now that a steady stream of refugees has slowed into Cherkasy, Ukraine, the city where the school is located and an early target of Russia, the focus of the fundraising has shifted to soldiers, Pendola said.

Her verified GoFundMe campaign, established under her father’s name, has raised nearly $27,800 since it was established a year ago this week. At today’s currency exchange rate, that’s worth more than $1 million on the Ukrainian economy. But the good she has done is priceless, said Julia Pais, until recently a vice principal and teacher at the Cherkasy school.

‘Where Does The Money Come From?’

“They ask, ‘Where does the money come from?’ ” Pais said in a FaceTime interview last week. “When I say, ‘The money comes from a teenager, a very pretty girl from California who loves you,’ it brings tears that somebody on the other side of the world is thinking about them and cares for them.”

Pais, herself a refugee living temporarily outside the Twin Cities in Minnesota, so she can give her 12-year-old son a chance at a normal life, coordinates efforts with volunteers in Ukraine, then posts a detailed accounting of how the money is spent.

The generosity of people contributing to Pendola’s campaign goes far enough to support about 75 people living more or less permanently in Cherkasy because they have nowhere else to go, but also covers some of the personal needs of soldiers in a ragtag army defending the country.

“You have only what you have in your pockets,” Pais said. “You wake up in the morning, and you do what is expected, and very often you do not come back to the same place at night.

“They have no way to wash their clothes. They need basic things — hygiene supplies, basic medicine for coughs, boots — and urgent things. The need is so great.”

• OUR ORIGINAL STORY: California Teen Tutored Ukrainian Kids In English, Decided It Wasn’t Enough

The front line has shifted away from key cities like Cherkasy to a 600-mile stretch along the eastern border, where forces are barely holding off a Russian offensive to extend Moscow’s control. Still, Cherkasy is hardly safe. Air raid sirens still blare at least once a day, and power is just now returning to reliability after the Russian army attacked the energy grid last fall.

“Regular blackouts lasted up until last week. Two hours on and two hours off, it would go back and forth like that,” Pais said. “That means we don’t have running water, we don’t have [on demand] heating, and it’s winter, we cannot cook. Ukrainians have learned to survive with candles and live their lives around keeping their phones charged.”

‘Do You Still Have A Country?’

Both Pendola and Pais worry the international support and goodwill extended to Ukraine in the early months of the war is waning.

“We have this feeling the world is tired of Ukraine. It’s gone on for such a long time, the focus is on other things,” Pais said. “Even here in the States, the questions are, ‘How’s Ukraine, and do you still have a country?’ Yes, and yes, we still have a need. We still need help.”

The scale of suffering — whether psychologically, economically or physically — is immense, with every Ukrainian touched in some way by the war, Pais said.

An estimated 8,000 civilians have been killed and another nearly 13,300 have been injured since the invasion, according to a February report from UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. At least 487 of those killed are children, and more than twice as many have been injured. And about 14 million people have been displaced from their homes. Troop losses are estimated at about 150,000 on each side.

Those displaced included many of the students Pendola was tutoring, kids who are now “scattered around the world,” she said.

“A lot of them did end up moving, some to different parts of Ukraine, some to different countries in Europe, some to the U.S. and Canada,” she said. “Some are back in Cherkasy, and lot were just displaced.”

‘Her Heart Aches For Ukraine’

The full effect of the Help for Ukraine fundraiser can’t be calculated in dollars and cents and hryvinia and kopiyok equivalencies. How it has lifted spirits when there’s not much to smile about in Ukraine can’t be emphasized enough, Pais said.

One example: With the money Pendola has raised, a volunteer named Oxana makes the rounds every day in hospitals filled with injured soldiers.

“She calls them ‘my boys,’ and the first thing she does is give them a hug,” Pais said. “They cry like babies cry, because they don’t have their families.”

And she reminds them that she is an emissary from a teenager in California.

“It’s extraordinary,” Pais said. “She cares. Her heart aches for Ukrainians. Her tutoring was a breath of fresh air, something that would distract them,” she said. Emotionally, she helped them feel safe and happy, if for a brief moment. She helped refugees, and now it’s soldiers.”

Counting the number of people Pendola has touched is harder to gauge, but Pais put it “hundreds and hundreds” of people. And yet Pendola remains humble and modest, understanding the full measure of what she has done to lift a country with few reasons to smile, Pais said.

‘I Will Hold Her Close’

They are on the same continent now and, soon, will be only a couple of states apart. Pendola has been accepted by the University of Michigan, where she plans to major in communications. The past year has shown her the power of social media, an area she’ll focus on at Michigan, and has given her confidence she said she didn’t possess a year ago.

From her now more worldly perspective, Pendola can’t help but notice the parallel with the political situation in her own country.

“I feel like our country is so divided,” she said, “and they can come together for one cause and be united. I wish war wasn’t the thing that made that happen, or that there has to be a traumatic event to bring us together.

“We could be that powerful,” she said of Ukraine’s grit. “Division holds us back from so much potential.”

As for Pais, she’s eager to meet Pendola.

“I have received so many hugs from Ukrainians,” Pais said, “when I see her, I will probably hold her close for a long time to give all the hugs back from people whose lives she touched.”

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