by: Hayley Smith, LHI Founder/Director
Stas is short for Stanislav, and that is the only short thing about him. At a height of 6’5”, the man towers over literally anyone he’s standing next to, especially the babushkas who live at shelter.
A few days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we started looking for local Ukrainian organizations to partner with in order to get solid work done. In this search, we connected with a Lviv local who had an incredible idea. In short, Stas owned an empty basement space and wanted to convert it into a 55-bed bomb shelter. With funding, he and a group of his engineer friends would transform the basement into a warm, welcoming two-story shelter.
We enthusiastically agreed to fund the project for several reasons, two of which stand out: The project proposal closely aligned with the key goals in our Ukraine response, and second, we prefer to work with local Ukrainian organizations and individuals. They started converting the shelter immediately. With their own hands, they built the second story, installed three toilets, two showers and a kitchen, along with installing all of the plumbing and ventilation systems. And, reflecting their desire for families to feel at home, put up homey wallpaper and painted cheerful walls for children’s space.
The LHI Shelter in Lviv under construction.
Let’s hear from Stas himself: “Originally, I decided to create a shelter for people who are forced to move from their cities because their homes were damaged by explosions.”
But now that the war is looking to be longer than perhaps anticipated, he has adapted his business plan:
“Our shelter is not designed for permanent residence, but people can stay for as long as it takes to find a home and job - be it a day, week, month or even year, if necessary. And of course, we will not charge for any of this, because our shelter is not designed for rich people, but it is designed for those who have lost everything because of the war.”
Even if the war does end soon, he hits on a very important point a lot of us may not think about: “There will still be many people who need temporary resettlement since their cities have been destroyed.”
Click play to watch this video of Stas giving me a tour of the LHI Shelter in Lviv.
And with his business background, he’s hatched yet another incredible idea: He’s hoping to buy a food sorting machine so that the women in the LHI Shelter can start a small food packing business.
When it comes to Stas, the women and children residents of the shelter have better manners than to gawk at Stas’s large stature like I did. They told me about his gentle heart, his commitment to their comfort, and his kindness.
Natalia from the Donesk region speaks emotionally about what brought her to the LHI Shelter in Lviv.
A woman in her 30s from the Donesk region volunteers her story. She’d run out of money to pay for a hostel she was staying in, so she fled to Lviv with her children. She said, “I prayed a lot. I believe in God very much. I called Arena Lviv (a famous soccer stadium that is currently serving as a shelter for refugees from the east), and they told me that there is a very good person named Stas who opened a place for wives of soldiers to stay at, for other moms with kids who need shelter. It’s totally free. They bring humanitarian aid here. We do not need anything here. We have good conditions here, we have the basics. I am very thankful to Stas. You can barely find such good people these days. Thanks to him, we are all okay.”
Many of the women at the LHI shelter shared their stories with me. In my next blog post, I will share them with you.