Deacons’ donation to help newly arrived Ukrainian students

St. Nicholas Cathedral School Principal Anna Cirilli and St. Nicholas Cathedral rector Father Serhiy Kovalchuk accepted a check for $10,000 from Catholic deacons in the Archdiocese of Chicago to help children who have recently arrived from Ukraine.

Cirelli and Kovalchuk both offered heartfelt thanks for the money, presented by Deacon James Sponder, chairman of the archdiocese’s Diaconate Council.

“The buckets this could go into are endless,” said Cirilli, who has already added staff members to assist the new students and may need to add more. “And we don’t want to forget the legacy students who have welcomed all the new students.”

The school began receiving support from the public when Russia invaded Ukraine in February, and money that was donated helped pay tuition for newly arrived students whose parents were not yet working and for additional staff needed to help integrate students who spoke no English. People also donated clothing, school supplies and toys for families who arrived, sometimes with only one bag to carry possessions from their homeland.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine has faded from the from the front pages, Kovalchuk also thanked media members in attendance for publishing and airing news about the school so its needs are not forgotten.

The school is a ministry of the St. Nicholas Eparchy of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, an Eastern-rite church in full communion with the Holy See. The eparchy — similar to a diocese — covers most of the United States from Chicago west to the Pacific coast.

While it is not a part of the Latin-rite Archdiocese of Chicago, the school has received great support from the archdiocese’s Office of Catholic Schools and from individual schools, which have held fundraisers, collected grocery gift cards for families and visited the school to pray for peace in Ukraine. Big Shoulders Fund has also provided additional aid to the school.

Most students speak at least some Ukrainian, and Ukrainian is taught as a foreign language at the school, which had about 170 students enrolled prior to the war.

Many families in Ukraine know of the school, Kovalchuk said, and know their children will be welcomed because it is part of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Cirilli said the school accepted about 75 students from Ukraine last year between January and June. War broke out in Ukraine in February, when Russia invaded its neighbor. This summer, she has about 45 students who have arrived in the United States from Ukraine in the last six months registered for the school year that starts Aug. 25, but she expects up to 20 more to show up for the first day of classes.

“It’s not easy for children to understand war, and that they must transfer countries because of war,” Kovalchuk said. “They come to a new culture. Here, it is part Ukrainian, part American culture. It is a good connection between the cultures.”

The money the deacons donated was part of the proceeds from last year’s St. Francis Dinner, an annual benefit hosted by the diaconate community of the Archdiocese of Chicago, according to Deacon David Brencic, associate director of the diaconate for the archdiocese. Brencic and Deacon James Norman, the vicar for deacons, attended the presentation at St. Nicholas Cathedral School with Sponder.