Utah Governor Spencer Cox welcomes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Utah today, stating that “Utah stands behind Ukraine.”
Utah nonprofit Lifting Hands International (LHI) plays a key role in providing aid to Ukraine from and within the Beehive State. Two years since the start of the war in Ukraine, this local humanitarian organization has built a comprehensive array of highly impactful programs helping displaced Ukrainians and Ukrainian refugees in Ukraine and Utah.”
“We provide an array of services in Ukraine, like supplying frontline hospitals with critical supplies to help treat civilians with war-related injuries,” says LHI Founder/CEO Hayley Smith. “Our Ukrainian teams also distribute food, drinking water, and medicine to frontline villages where elderly and vulnerable people have moved into dark, damp, basement shelters, cut off from supply lines.” In 2024 alone, LHI has distributed more than 194 tons of aid, helping over 60,000 Ukrainians.
Lifting Hands International also operates 7 Community Centers across Ukraine that provide healing therapy and social-emotional support. “Our team reported that a young boy who regularly attends one of our community centers had a repeating trauma loop, where environmental triggers would lead him to climb under the table and reenact his mother’s death. Thanks to our mobile team of trained psychologists, he’s been able to break that loop and find healing,” explains Smith.
Utahns donate items like winter clothing, generators, hygiene kits, and more through Lifting Hands International’s Humanitarian Aid warehouse. LHI then ships these items into Ukraine and distributes them to Ukrainians who have lost their homes. Monetary donations from Utahns also fund the community centers, distribution teams, and a women and children’s shelter in Ukraine.
For Ukrainian refugees arriving in Utah, Lifting Hands International stocks and furnishes their apartment with basic living essentials like beds, sheets, dishes, and cleaning supplies.
“Ukrainians are fiercely resilient, and Utahns are inherently generous,” says Smith. “That combination has a real impact in the lives of Ukrainians, from those living in Utah to those living on the frontlines. No matter the circumstance, they are facing the horrible realities of living through a war. We want them to know they are not alone.”
