Photo courtesy of Matthew Zabka Matt Zabka, a faculty member at Southwest Minnesota State University, took this photo with a friend in Freedom Square in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine in 2019. Zabka has visited and taught in Ukraine several times since 2015, but he says many places he has visited have been bombed in the Russian invasion.

MARSHALL — Ukraine is a place where Matt Zabka has both worked and built friendships. When he learned that a friend there was organizing aid for people displaced by the Russian military invasion, he wanted to help.

Faculty members at Southwest Minnesota State University have also joined in, Zabka said. Last week, Zabka, an assistant professor of mathematics at SMSU, spoke about a relief project in the city of Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine at a faculty assembly. So far, he said SMSU faculty have donated more than $1,000 to support local relief efforts in Khmelnytskyi.

“I felt I had to do something,” he said.

Zabka plans to send the donated funds to his friend, Valentyna Nechyporuk, who is working to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing violence in the eastern part of the country.

Zabka has visited Ukraine several times since 2015. On those visits, he started volunteering to teach English and German at the OLA Language School in Khmelnytskyi. The school, led by Valentyna, has both classrooms and a level of apartments for guest teachers, Zabka said.

While at OLA, Zabka taught English to kids, as well as to Ukrainian soldiers. He also organized a summer math and logic camp for children at OLA.

“It’s just this magical place,” Zabka said of Ukraine.

He made friends and enjoyed meeting people there.

Zabka said he returned from his most recent trip to Ukraine before Russia’s invasion of the country began.

“I felt guilty about coming back,” he said.

Zabka said he’s stayed in touch with friends in Ukraine, and heard how the war has affected them.

“All these places I’ve been to have been bombed,” he said. “I have a friend who was living in a subway station in Kharkiv,” while her husband joined the Ukranian defense efforts, Zabka said.

He said his friend was eventually able to make it to Poland.

Zabka said so far Khmelnytskyi has been relatively safe from the invasion, although a nearby military base was hit hard. But the city has seen many people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine.

“You have these trains coming from the east that are just packed with people,” Zabka said.

He said Valentyna has switched gears from running OLA to helping refugees.

“She’s organizing this big relief effort,” Zabka said.

As part of the relief project, volunteers bring packages of food, toiletries and bottled water to people arriving in Khmelnytskyi. The water is especially important on the hot, crowded trains.

Zabka brought Valentyna’s story to the SMSU Faculty Association assembly on March 3, he said. He had hoped faculty members might donate to the relief efforts in Khmelnytskyi, but he said he hadn’t anticipated the response he got.

The SMSU faculty has donated more than $1,200 to the project so far, he said. He plans to send the money to Valentyna to support her relief work.

“Valentyna has been incredibly strong this entire time. Before the war, she told me many times, ‘If there will be a war, let there be a war. We are ready,’ ” Zabka said.

“She is confident in what she is doing and convinced that she and the rest of Ukraine are united and will succeed.”