While Polish exchange student Karina Jedrzejczyk has found a place here in America because of Putin’s massive invasion of her next-door neighbor Ukraine, Jedrzeczyk worries for her family, friends, and country.

Due to the current situation in Ukraine, millions of citizens are fleeing from their home country into neighboring nations such as Poland. This means that Jedrzeczyk county has taken on feeding and sheltering these millions. Poland does not have the infrastructure or resources in place to take care of them.

“I honestly don’t know how to feel about this whole situation. It’s hard to talk about it sometimes,” said Jedrzejczyk.
Jedrzejczyk’s mom Kasia (Kate) Fetter runs “Pora na Seniora”, a volunteer foundation in Warsaw that works with the elderly. Due to the increase of refugees entering Poland, Fetter and others make 100 sandwiches a day to feed everyone.
“My mom always loved volunteering and helping people, so she felt like it was just a natural thing to do,” said Jedrzejczyk.

Jedrzejczyk is torn between pride for her country for accepting the Ukrainian refugees but also aware of the consequences Poland might face in the long run.

“If these people don’t return to Ukraine after this horrible war is over, they will all need jobs and money. It’s always hard when there are new people coming to a country, it gets overpopulated and we already have lots of people considering the size of Poland,” said Jedrzejczyk.

At Jedrzejczyk’s Polish high school, there was a bomb scare. This news came as a surprise to Jedrzejczyk because “Poland is usually a safe country, we don’t even have to have fire, tornado, terrorist attack drills because stuff like that never happens there. I feel bad for all of the people sitting by their desks and all of the sudden hearing that there might be a bomb at the school,” said Jedrzejczyk. “It is really scary and I don’t think anyone would want to experience that.”
However, the war is not just affecting Ukraine and Poland. All across Europe and even in countries like America, individuals feel the effects as gas prices spike and family members are called for deployment. Jedrzejczyk advises students to watch the news and stay educated on what is happening.

“I think many people here think that because Europe is so far away, everything will be alright in the U.S. I hear so many students making fun of the war and creating or looking at different memes about the war,” said Jedrzejczyk.
students can get involved by donating to the Volunteer Fauquier Club’s coin campaign. Their goal is for individual homerooms to collect coins to send aid to UNICEF’s Ukraine relief fund to help refugee children. It will run from March 14 to April 22.

“I just hope that everything will end soon and these people will be able to go home and live their lives again because this war really is horrible, and so many people already got hurt and traumatized,” said Jedrzejczyk.