Viktoriia Zimovchenko is a volunteer and participant of Slavic Refugee and Immigrant Services, a 2024 recipient of the Prebys Foundation’s Healing Through the Arts & Nature grant.
This grant supports nonprofit organizations that serve youth, veterans, justice-impacted individuals, and historically underserved communities. Through innovative approaches, these organizations provide meaningful opportunities to enhance well-being and quality of life in a post-pandemic world.
Viktoriia’s Story
“I’m from Ukraine, my native city is Zhytomyr, near Kyiv, but my husband is from Kyiv, and we lived there for more than 10 years.
We moved here to America, I think, accidentally. We traveled to a lot of countries around Europe, but it was only a dream to visit America, but not to live here.
When the war started in Ukraine, we lived there for about half a year and then decided that we needed to move because my son was not even a year old yet. When we saw that it was not ending, we tried to find where to move, and one of our friends told us to consider America.
We tried California and moved to Los Angeles. We lived there for a month, but we decided that it wasn’t great to live there with a little child. That’s why we moved to San Diego.
And now, we have been here for two years. We love San Diego very much. It’s a beautiful place with a lot of beautiful nature. Nature is, I think, the most perfect thing here, and the weather as well.
Connecting with the Slavic Refugee and Immigrant Services Organization was like magic.
One day I was at the store with my husband, and we were speaking Ukrainian with each other. A man heard us and told us he was from Ukraine as well. He asked if we knew Krystsina and Slavic Refugee and Immigrant Services. We didn’t know anyone in this country. And he told us that this is very good organization that helps Slavic people, and especially Ukrainians now.
He gave us a phone number to contact and then we met with Krystsina. She helped us so much for the first time, with toys for our kid, because when we moved here, he only had two toys — it’s too much to carry everything with you from Ukraine. She helped us with the food distribution, furniture distribution, all the first necessary things that you need for the first time. It’s very expensive when you move and need to purchase everything.
The organization helped us with important information, with support like mental support and a lot of events.
We gather with our community, and it is like magic. This is the most important thing that happened to our family when we came to America. When you move, you think that you are alone, but now you feel this support and that it’s very important.
Today we are doing our women’s wellness classes. When the weather is good, we do yoga at the beach. It’s very important and useful for our mental health. Because we become more calm. We are able to pay attention to ourselves, because we are always running from
one place to another and we need to resolve problems, but for one hour a week, we can take care of ourselves. And of course, we communicate with the other girls, we make friendships, and it’s very cool.
I’ve known this for years, but now I understand better that the three most important things in all people’s lives are God, nature and good people. These things can help us in all situations. And here, we have everything. We are surrounded by good people and nature that gives us fresh air. We get to see the green leaves and trees. And when we look at the ocean, it makes us calm and helps us return to ourselves, return to the most important things.
After doing this, you feel full of good energy, full of peace and motivation to start your day and keep going.
It is my dream for the war to stop because it’s awful. When you see it on TV, even if you are far away from the war, physically, you are mentally there. So that is always on our mind.
And of course, as we are here for two years now, I would like my family and I to start to feel like we are native here. We have love for this area and the people, and it starts to feel a little bit like we are at home.
I hope that because of organizations like Slavic Refugee and Immigrant Service, these dreams become more real because it makes a big difference when you have support.”
This profile is a feature for People de San Diego, a storytelling project by the Prebys Foundation highlighting valuable community members of San Diego County.
