Our MissioN
The goal of the Ashland/Sviatohirsk Sister City Project is to promote, foster and maintain a mutually beneficial and rewarding collegial relationship with a city in Ukraine on a long term basis. This kind of relationship traditionally includes reciprocal activities in the areas of education, the arts, and business and may include student and teacher exchange programs, scholarship funds, cultural events, language training programs via zoom, and potential business partnerships and promotions. Ashland has maintained such a relationship with Guanahuato, Mexico for over 50 years.
However, it is the sad reality that in the short-term, Ukrainian cities are under siege by an aggressive, genocidal neighbor and need help in ways they cannot immediately reciprocate. Our intention, therefore, is to offer support now to a sister city that’s shown itself to be courageous and resilient in the face of unimaginable suffering, in the confidence that when the war is over, our partner city will regain its strength and capacity to be a full and generous partner in an ongoing and mutually supportive relationship.
Our motto is: we cannot hope to save the whole country of Ukraine, but we can, with good will and some collective hard work, help one small town at a time.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The development of
our project
The project began with establishing communication between Tonya Graham, the mayor of Ashland and Volodymyr Ribalkin, the interim mayor of Sviatohirsk. They spoke by zoom for the first time on May 30, 2023. Mayor Ribalkin described the extensive damage done to his town by Russian shelling and a subsequent occupation for 7 months. He also gave us a breakdown of what was needed to restore critical infrastructure and begin the process of rebuilding the town. Our priority was to identify equipment and supplies that would be useful and purchase them through our partner, Ukraine Aid International, rather than send money to track the usage of our donations and avoid corruption.
Here in Ashland, a steering committee was formed to promote the sister city initiative. The board presently has 6 members: Jim Nagel, Ben Stott, Paul Sheldon, Louise Paré, Betsy Bishop, and Nikita Bazarsky. There is also a larger advisory group made up of volunteers who have skills and expertise to share and a commitment to support Ukraine.
On June 20, 2023, the Ashland City Council unanimously passed the resolution to adopt Sviatohirsk as our sister city with the aim of helping it, and by extension, all of Ukraine recover from the devastation and horror of the Russian invasion.
Since that time, ASAPAshland (the new name of our sister city initiative) has held two large fundraising concerts and raised enough money to purchase a large dump truck, assist in the installation of a large water filtration system, and do a pilot window restoration project. Our current project is to promote and help finance a micro-loan credit bank in Sviatohirsk to provide low cost loans for citizens to rebuild their small businesses. This we hope will provide jobs and essential services and be a key factor in restoring Sviatohirsk so that displaced town members will be attracted to return and participate in its rebirth. Our work in helping Sviatohirsk is also a template for other cities and NGOs looking for practical ways to help Ukraine.
Our Sister city's Story
ASAP in the news
Click the links to read the articles!
TIMELINE
and
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
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June 2023 - Ashland City Council adopted a proposal from ASAP (Ashland – Sviatohirsk – Aid – Project) to adopt Sviatohirsk as an Ashland Sister City
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June 2023 - ASAP is granted 501(c)3 status enabling it to operate as a non-profit organization
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August 2023 - ASAP puts on a concert at AHS featuring Ukrainian performers, testimonials from some of our Ukrainian refugees living in the Rogue Valley, pictures and a talk from Benjamin Stott an ASAP member who was in Sviatohirsk Ukraine at the time and he talked about the importance of supporting Ukraine. Other dignitaries from Ashland including our Mayor Tonya Graham. Oregon legislators Pam Marsh and Jeff Golden also spoke to the importance of giving support. The concert was sold out with over 400 in attendance and the group raised over $12,000.
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December 2023 - ASAP had another fundraising success holding a concert and auction at the Ashland Historical Armory which raised over $11,000. Once again the fundraiser featured members of our local Ukrainian community. As a product of our fundraising efforts, ASAP purchased a dump truck as requested by Mayor Rybalkin which is now in use in Sviatohirsk
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Summer 2024 - our Vice President and founder of the ASAP organization Benjamin Stott, traveled to Ukraine and visited with Mayor Rybalkin and members of the Sviatohirsk community. He was able to interview a number of residents and brought back video of his trip which he will share with the community at our upcoming events.
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October 2024 - In conjunction with Amina Mundi Productions and Uniting for Ukraine, Rogue Valley, ASAP sponsored the Ukrainian Fall Cultural Fair at the Rogue Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. This event celebrated Ukrainian culture, through their foods, arts, crafts and with music provided by Ukrainian Grammy Award winning artist Nadia Spachenko and local pianist Iryna Kudielina. ASAP raised over $1,800 at that event.
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January 2025 - ASAP purchased three chainsaws, spare chains, and oil to help provide fuel for the wood pellet stove used to help heat the municipal buildings in Sviatohirsk.
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March 2025 - Another concert and informational event is scheduled at the Mountain Avenue Theatre on March 30th at 2pm.
Six ways you can help
1. Collect things to donate - high value medical supplies, cooking stoves, hand warmers, generators, power banks, solar chargers, etc. We can help you assemble and ship pallets of needed supplies.
2. Join protests and write to politicians to “stay the course” and not give in to Putin's nuclear blackmail.
4. Hire Ukrainians
5. Volunteer your professional skills, IT, medical, de-mining, business/financial on-line or in country
6. Donate money
Money you donate to ASAP is used to improve the lives of the citizens of our sister-city, Sviatohirsk. Our partner, Ukraine Aid International also supports five other similar projects and needs our support as well. We could not manage without their help.