AURORA | Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday during a roundtable at a Ukrainian-owned coffee shop in Aurora that the state is committed to helping Ukrainians in Colorado and abroad who are being impacted by the Russian invasion.
“We, as Coloradans all stand with Ukraine and your stand for peace, and we want to do everything we can to end the invasion and help make sure that your family members are safe,” Polis said, surrounded by a group of Ukrainian and Belarusian immigrants, people working to support the war-torn country, and media.
The state has divested its investments in Russia, urged higher education institutions to do the same and had state departments review contracts and terminate any with Russian state-owned companies.
“We’re doing everything that we can to support the end of this Russian invasion,” Polis said.
The group gathered at Wake and Take Coffee, which opened at 2337 S. Blackhawk Street last year. Owner Dmytro Soluskyi said the coffee and tea his shop serves is Ukrainian.
Colorado is home to more than 11,000 first generation Ukrainian-Americans, Polis said. In a 2016 diversity report by the City of Aurora, Ukrainians were the 11th most populous immigrant group in the city of more than 360,000 people. The city estimated 922 Ukrainians lived in Aurora then.
Amid the Russian invasion, Ukrainians of Colorado, a non-profit formed in 2014 after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Donbas region, quickly organized to arrange donations of medical supplies for people in Ukraine.
The group’s president Marina Dubrova said during the roundtable that the organization’s biggest goal right now is to raise money to buy medical supplies, which will be shipped to Poland and transported across the border into Ukraine.
Dubrova said one anonymous doctor donated $100,000. A donation page on the group’s website shows 159 donations have raised another $21,350.
“In the last 13 days, we received so much attention and so much help and support,” she said. Local communities of Russian-Americans, Korean-Americans, Polish-Americans and many more have stepped up to help raise funds and offer prayer.
The group has also set up two donation centers, one in Aurora and another in Arvada:
Alameda Dental: 14591 E. Alameda Ave. in Aurora
Arvada Pharmacy: 10383 Ralston Road in Arvada