PA Leaders Hold Event Highlighting Ongoing Need For Aid To Ukraine

JENKINTOWN, PA — Local, county and state leaders visited Manor College in this eastern Montgomery County community on Thursday to raise awareness about the continued need to aid the people of Ukraine as their country experiences an ongoing humanitarian crisis due to the war with Russia.

The news conference, which was organized by the office of Montgomery County Democratic State Rep. Ben Sanchez, was created to highlight ways in which individuals can continue supporting the people of Ukraine who have suffered greatly under Russia's ongoing military occupation.

Speakers at the event, which took place inside Manor College's Ukrainian Heritage Studies Center, included Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, State Sens. Maria Collett and Art Haywood, and Jonathan Peri, the president of Manor College.

"The side to be on is the side of Ukraine," Shapiro said in his remarks.

Shapiro noted that in the last 100 days, there have been more than 5,000 confirmed deaths due to the war in Ukraine, as well as more than six million new refugees, and more than eight million individuals displaced, "because of the war crimes committed by Russians."

"That is something that the world cannot look away from, and something we must acknowledge as truth and we must dedicate ourselves to speaking out against," Shapiro said.

Shapiro said Pennsylvania is "uniquely touched by these events," since there are more than 122,000 people of Ukrainian descent who live in the commonwealth.

"This is a moment for us to continue to focus attention, on not just the atrocities, but on the good people of Ukraine, and making sure that we are there for them today, tomorrow, and most importantly to be there for them when this war ends and they rebuild their nation," Shapiro said, noting that his own great-grandparents emigrated from Ukraine in the early 1900s.

State Sen. Maria Collett, who also spoke, said her 12th Senatorial District in Montgomery and Bucks Counties is home to a "substantial" population of constituents of Ukrainian descent.

"Again and again, it has become clear that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin must be held accountable for the instability, destruction and loss of life he has wrought," Collett said. "Now is the time for us to come together and be a source of strength and support for each other."

Collett's Senate colleague, Art Haywood, said it's important to be here for "our neighbors" of Ukranian descent who need both community love and solidarity.

Haywood spoke about the importance of supporting the people of Ukraine through things like humanitarian donations and military assistance.

"We are here because we are neighbors," Haywood said.

Manor College President Jonathan Peri said that the college is America's only institution of higher education that was founded by Ukrainian religious sisters, the Sisters of the Order of Saint Basil the Great.

Peri said the college finds Russia's war of aggression against the Ukrainian people a "despicable antithesis of Judeo-Christian and all westernized values."

"Putin's maliciousness is not only to gain land mass and economic value, his war is a genocide against," Ukrainians, Peri said.

Peri — who spoke amidst the backdrop of various Ukrainian artifacts in the Catholic college's Ukrainian museum — said the Ukrainian people need our collective continued support.

Peri paraphrased the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in saying that, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

"We at Manor College stand with Ukraine," Peri said. "In so doing, we have established relationships to ensure a vast array of humanitarian aid is received by nonprofits ..."

Peri noted that Manor College, at its recent commencement ceremony, honored Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with an honorary doctoral degree, doing so by collaborating with 26 other colleges and universities in the U.S. who did the same.

Peri said, "we will not go away. We will not let this rest. We will keep the flags of Ukraine firmly planted at Manor College alongside our American flag and we will encourage and promote Ukraine's right to exist as a free, sovereign, Democratic nation forever more."

Another speaker at the event was John Carne, a frontline volunteer who worked to help refugees fleeing Ukraine.

Carne, a businessman who owns restaurants in South Philadelphia, told of his own visit to Poland, where he embedded himself for a time and aided those Ukrainians who found themselves without a home after war broke out.

Carne became visibly emotional as he told his tale of wartime atrocities and the scenes he witnessed overseas as the war unfolded against the Ukrainian people.