PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Temple University students showed support and solidarity for the people of Ukraine at a rally on Thursday.
Anya Dinh, a student in Temple’s School of Pharmacy, has been in the U.S. since 2016. She was born and raised in Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, and the last few weeks have left her more homesick than ever.
“At 4 a.m., Putin declared the war. At 4:30, all of my friends called me saying they were woken up by bombs,” she recalled of that day two weeks ago. “Our city right now is destroyed.
“My friends here stopped me and said I will not be as helpful there as I can be here, supporting them financially, by informing more people about this and letting them know what’s going on.”
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Dozens of Temple students gathered with Dinh to rally and raise money for Ukrainians who are defending their country. They sold Ukrainian food and different tchotchkes to raise funds for their cause.
Anastasia Maystrych was one of them. The first-generation Ukrainian-American said it’s the least she can do to help her friends and family.
“Ever since we heard about the news, it’s just been devastating,” she said. “We’re doing everything we can here to support because we can’t really go there and help in any other way.”
Isaiah Kaplan came out to support his friend, David Cherkasskiy. He draped a blue and yellow flag on his back and carried a poster explaining how his friend is “defending his city of Denpr in Ukraine RIGHT NOW! Please donate so I can send him medical supplies, defensive gear, money, and HOPE.”
“He’s fighting right now in Ukraine,” Kaplan said. “He’s been pretty stressed out, scared, but he’s ready for whatever. He’s not a soldier, he’s a regular guy who took up arms and he’s defending his city.”