Overland Park man raises money to help about 2,000 Ukrainians flee to safety
An Overland Park man has helped about 2,000 people in Ukraine flee to the border for safety as Russia attacks locations with civilians including a school, a theater and a hostel which were hit this week.
When alarming accounts of Russia’s invasion emerged in late February, entrepreneur Leo Khayet began mobilizing his resources, including connections with Kansas City area business leaders and an organization working on the ground in Ukraine.
“In my particular instance, it hit a personal note for me because my family resettled from that part of the world just over 30 years ago,” said Khayet, whose family arrived in Kansas City in 1989 when he was six years old.
In less than three weeks, Khayet said he has raised more than $200,000 which has helped thousands of people escape Odessa, a port city of about one million people, and cross the border into neighboring Moldova.
Call to action
When Russia’s assault on Ukraine started, Khayet got in touch with a contact at Chabad, an international Jewish organization with a chapter in Wichita. Rabbi Shmulik Greenberg moved to Wichita in 2018 from Odessa where he had run an orphanage, and still has connections in Ukraine.
The two met earlier this year through Chabad. As they began brainstorming ways to help Ukraine, Khayet started reaching out to business leaders in the Kansas City metro.
Odessa had been identified as a strategic city for Russia, he said, and people needed to evacuate. A bus carrying 35 to 50 people cost about $4,000.
Immediately, two Kansas City area donors pledged $50,000 each.
“Once two people got on board, I realized that this is real,” Khayet said.
An account was set up, accessible to a Chabad representative on the ground in Odessa, who made the bus arrangements.
“We got over 1,000 people out with that money, literally within a matter of days,” Khayet said.
Greenberg said the buses transported people of different religions, not just Jewish residents, to safety.
The convoys of buses arrived in Moldova, to the west of Ukraine, because the Polish border was already overflowing with people trying to escape the war.
The idea grew and Khayet got more people involved. On March 9, he organized a virtual meeting for another round of fundraising.
“That Zoom call yielded multiple pledges of large amounts,” he said.
One business leader pledged money for the buses as well as financial support to 10 families relocating to the Kansas City area.
More than $200,000 has now been raised.
War, Greenberg said, brings out the best and the worst in people.
“In this case, this has really brought out the best of the community here in Kansas,” he said. “They’re ready to save people who they have no clue who they are, that live thousands of miles away, they don’t even share a common language with them, besides the fact that we’re human beings and I think that is amazing.”
‘Giving back’
The invasion has forced more than three million people to leave Ukraine, the Associated Press reported Thursday. Shelling and airstrikes this week have killed dozens of civilians across the country, including children.
Khayet said so many people have fled Odessa that the needs on the ground are changing. In addition to transportation for evacuations, money raised will now also go towards supporting short-term resettlement in Europe and the U.S.
Khayet said he can identify with what many Ukrainians are experiencing.
He was born in Belarus and when he was young, his parents decided to seek a better life for their two sons. The family lived in refugee camps in Austria and Italy for five months before arriving in Kansas City in 1989 with the help of multiple organizations.
“They wanted to raise their children in a country where you can go get an education, go live an honest life, you can go start a company, you can just contribute to society, there’s a rule of law,” Khayet said. “There’s a lot of things that people in Kansas City take for granted when they haven’t experienced the alternative. The basic notion of self-government is not true for many people in the world.”
In an effort to continue helping victims of the war in Ukraine, Khayet is planning another Zoom call and inviting other prominent area business leaders.
Kansas City, he said, has “an enormous sense of giving back.”
A page for Kansas Citians to donate to the evacuation efforts has also been launched.
