Bethel Uni­ver­sity Starts Fund to Sup­port Ukraine 

MISHAWAKA- Bethel Uni­ver­sity stu­dent Vladlena Kly­mova, a Ukraine na­tive, re­cently pro­posed the idea of start­ing a fund to help Ukraine and its peo­ples’ many needs dur­ing its cur­rent cri­sis. 

Shawn Holt­gren, Ph.D., vice pres­i­dent for stu­dent de­vel­op­ment, is help­ing to over­see the pro­ject. 

“The hope is to de­liver the funds di­rectly to the peo­ple of Ukraine who are be­ing af­fected by this in­va­sion, through the lo­cal church there and pos­si­bly other re­lief or­ga­ni­za­tions on the ground,” Holt­gren said. “The goal is sim­ply to sup­port Vladlena and her coun­try, through prayer and fi­nances, dur­ing a time of in­tense con­flict and loss for them.”

In ad­di­tion to Holt­gren and Kly­mova, other in­di­vid­u­als as­sist­ing with the pro­ject in­clude stu­dent Michelle Moraitis and Stu­dent De­vel­op­ment Of­fice As­sis­tant Brooke Con­rady. Any­one can bring funds to the Stu­dent Life Of­fice or can give through the link pro­vided in the all-cam­pus email that was sent out on March 18. 

Holt­gren said the fund will close in a few weeks, but the Stu­dent De­vel­op­ment Staff would en­cour­age peo­ple to con­tinue sup­port­ing Kly­mova and the peo­ple of Ukraine through prayer.