Ind. — February 24, 2022. It's a day Svitlana Ramer will never forget.
"I saw missed calls from my mom and a text message that said 'we are being bombed,'" Ramer said.
A year later, as the Russian invasion into Ukraine continues, Ramer still fears the worst.
"The first thing I do every day, I open my phone, and I call my mom to see if she's still good, if she's still alive. She's still there," Ramer said.
Ramer's entire family lives in Ukraine. She moved to the U.S. as a graduate student in 2008 and has lived in Indiana for the last 6 years.
She wanted to do something to unite Ukrainians in Indiana who were feeling the same fear and pain that she was.
"We needed a focal point for the community. There needed to be a place where everybody could come together and talk about things and meet other Ukrainians and figure out ideas and figure out what to do and find resources," Ramer said.
She teamed up with Mariya Plichta, who is also from Ukraine, to form the Ukrainian Society of Indiana in March of 2022.
"We wanted to be around our people. We wanted to celebrate our traditions together," Plichta said.
The organizations focuses on three pillars: cultural, educational and civic.
"In just less than a year of operations, we've held the first Ukrainian festival in Indiana. We have established the first Ukrainian sister city, we have obtained the first proclamation from the governor recognizing a Ukrainian holiday [and] we launched the first Ukrainian story times for children at the Indianapolis Public Library," Ramer said.
The Ukrainian Society of Indiana's mission also includes being a voice for their families back home.
"It's very important that even though it's not on the news as much as it used to be in the beginning, it's still going on. And it's somehow it's even worse because they spread to different locations. There are more people more people dying every single day," Plichta said.
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