Flathead Valley Nonprofits Turn to Grassroots Organizing to Help Ukrainian Refugees

In May, Brian Gannon stood in a long line of refugees at the Ukrainian border, surrounded by women and children eager to escape their war-stricken country for a safer future in neighboring Poland. While Gannon waited with a backpack full of souvenirs to bring home to Montana, the families around him carried much heavier baggage—what was left of their personal belongings and the trauma of their lives interrupted by war.

As the conflict in Ukraine endures, northwest Montanans like Gannon have organized to aid war victims, raising money and connecting with Ukrainians who have lost family members and been forced out of their homes. Gannon’s nonprofit organization, Ukraine America Initiative, and local immigrant advocacy nonprofit, Valley Neighbors, are organizing for Ukrainians in the Flathead and abroad as the brutal war continues into the fall.

For Gannon, a Montana native and Flathead County resident, traveling to Ukraine is no new venture. After finishing high school, Gannon moved to Alaska to work in the seafood processing industry, where he would eventually find himself staffing processing plants with large numbers of Eastern European workers, eager to travel to the United States for jobs. Gannon said around 15,000 Ukrainians have cycled through his program over the past ten years, far outnumbering workers from any other country. Each year, Gannon took multiple trips to Ukraine, traveling throughout the country to recruit employees.

When war broke out in February, Gannon was horrified, as the country where he had built so many relationships descended into chaos.

“To see all of these displaced women and children and orphans from indiscriminate bombing, it’s hard not to feel connected,” he said.

About one week after the war started, Gannon filed paperwork to create Ukraine America Initiative, a nonprofit organization based out of Kalispell that raises money for refugee relief and supports civic organizations inside and outside of Ukraine. To date, the organization has helped fund daycares, orphanages, language schools, housing projects and refugee centers in both Ukraine and Poland.

For Gannon, UA Initiative stands apart from other international aid organizations in its personal connection to the country and people it helps. Despite the risks involved, Gannon has continued to travel to Ukraine throughout the war to meet people and visit the organizations his nonprofit donates to, calling it a “grassroots” strategy.

“We went and visited some of the Ukrainians that our funding is helping, as well as checking out the operations where some of our money is going,” he told the Beacon, highlighting the importance of making the effort to “visit, hear and be a part of something.”

Like Gannon, John Skinner and Rebecca Miller of nonprofit Valley Neighbors have organized to help Ukrainians displaced by the war. After a long few weeks of fundraising and managing immigration paperwork, Valley Neighbors sponsored a refugee family from Ukraine, helping them successfully relocate to the Flathead Valley in early August. The nonprofit also provided support to a second Ukrainian family who recently moved to the Flathead with the help of a Whitefish church.

Though Skinner and Miller are relieved that the families have made a move to the Flathead, the road to building a stable life in the U.S. is a long one. Miller said it has been “a busy couple of months” for the organization, as they have worked to register the children for school, navigated landlord relationships, filled out immigration paperwork and helped check off the many tasks involved with moving into a new home.

In addition to the two families the organization has helped to relocate, Valley Neighbors is expanding their focus to assist immigrants across the Flathead, many of whom have moved to the area because of work opportunities and family connections. Currently, the organization is in contact with a number of immigrant families who have moved to the area for work and are in need of resettlement services.

Skinner and Miller are aware that many locals are wary of immigrants moving to the area, especially given the housing crisis that has swept across the valley. However, Skinner notes that housing is not the only shortage facing the valley, pointing to the continuing struggle for local businesses to find adequate labor. This is particularly important in the wake of rapid development in the area, he said, given that jobs in construction and manual labor are often filled by immigrants, rather than by locals.

Operating dozens of new AirBnB’s and hotels “has those ripple effects throughout the economy which include all of the service workers that now move here because of those jobs,” Skinner said, referencing the boom in construction geared towards tourists.

“If we’re building a grain silo restaurant and apartments, that’s great,” Skinner added, speaking about the development in and around Kalispell, “But if we don’t have the traditional workforce that already lives here, and the [available] workers happen to be immigrants or refugees, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

As Valley Neighbors continues to grow, Skinner and Miller are looking to sponsor more families and offer support to local refugees and immigrant groups. Ultimately, Skinner said, “People are going to come here whether we bring them here or not.” The real work for the two local volunteers involves deciding how we respond to the new residents.

For Gannon, the moral imperative to help refugees is unquestionable.

“We go to school, we go to work in the Flathead and we live, really, a charmed existence. The mountains are beautiful, the lake is amazing and our quality of life is strong,” Gannon said. However, he added, “Our world is really small and it encompasses the Flathead Valley. The outside world is a sad and scary place in many regards, and people that have similar lives to us have lost everything in this war. They’re being bombed and shelled every night. It’s a literal war, the likes of which we can’t even imagine.”

Right now, both organizations say their most critical need is monetary donations, which can be made at valleyneighborswelcome.org and uainitiative.org. Valley Neighbors is also continuing to seek out partners to help with resettlement responsibilities for local refugee families.

Gannon, who spoke to the Beacon from Poland as he headed into Ukraine to visit local organizations, emphasized the importance of helping the many people suffering from the impacts of the war.

“Ukraine is a special place,” he said. “It’s certainly worth fighting for.”