The organizer of a fundraising dinner for Ukrainian refugees has gone to Poland to help the Lower Mainland Ukrainian community organize its charitable efforts on the ground.
Mission resident Dustin Hiles, a Ukrainian Catholic, originally planned to join Ukraine’s foreign legion of international volunteers fighting in the war for Ukraine – before health complications forced him to miss the trip.
Instead of going to fight, he organized an event to help raise money for Ukrainian refugees called the Stand with Ukraine dinner at Saint Joseph’s Church in Mission.
People told Hiles he was crazy to plan such as event without more notice. Hiles, who has a deep devotion to the Virgin Mary, Hiles told The B.C. Catholic, “Our Holy Mother really wanted this. I couldn’t have done this by myself – it was all her.”
He was adamant that she be in attendance, and so a statue of Our Lady of Fatima surrounded by blue flowers was brought to the event.
The menu was traditional Ukrainian food including perogies, kielbasa sausage, and holubtsi cabbage rolls. Pies for dessert were donated by a local business.
Hiles is politically well connected and sent invitations to as many prominent people in Mission as he could think of. A number of politicians showed up, including Conservative MPs Brad Vis of Mission-Matsqui-Fraser Canyon and Ed Fast of Abbotsford.
Hiles was particularly grateful to Vis for his monetary contributions and help publicizing the event.
“He stepped up,” said Hiles, “he put our posters on social media, bought three tickets before anyone else – he was great.”
Father Mykhailo Ozorovych, pastor of Holy Eucharist Cathedral in New Westminster, was in attendance and gave an appeal to the guests to pray for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The priest “talked about how evil manifests itself everyday; today it is Putin, but tomorrow it will be someone else,” Hiles said. “That moved a lot of people.”
The event raised $11,000, which delivered to Father Ozorovych to be used by his parish for its outreach and charitable work in Ukraine.
Hiles ended up leaving for Poland after all when Father Ozorovych told him he needed someone to help organize the parish’s humanitarian efforts and help prospective refugees file their paperwork to come to Canada.
Hiles is staying next to Saint Florian’s church, in Krakow, the parish where Saint John Paul II cut his teeth as a young priest.
An estimated 2.8 million Ukrainian refugees have fled the Russian invasion – 1.3 million of whom have ended up in Poland. Because of the Ukrainian government draft the refugees are mostly made up of women and children. Sadly, the elderly and sick are often being left behind.
“Our main focus is to help the refugees navigate the paperwork to come to Canada,” said Hiles, “I want to bring in 1,000 families to Canada.”
Hiles said the Canadian government is making it hard to help people. “It is very bureaucratic. There are rules [refugees] need to follow – like potentially giving up their passports. People don’t want to come,” Hiles said.
One additional problem facing aid organizations is that refugees are reluctant to give up on Ukraine because they want to return home when the fighting is over.
Despite the frustrations Hiles has hope and faith in God’s providence. He describes all he does as “opus Dei” – the work of God.
“I left despite health complications. When you look at what death is, versus what life is, my faith has become something real. I understood that I could die here. I know that God has kept me alive, and I know that the mother of God has my life in the palm of her hand to give to her son,” he said.
The work being done in Poland is expensive and Hiles hopes to inspire people to donate, or better yet, make the trip to Poland and join him in his work.
“People can come here and help and do this work. It’s just like Mother Teresa said, there is so much work to be done; there are so many hurting people.”
