Kitchener group finds accordion for Ukrainian boy

Natalia Kisten and her 10-year-old son Kyrylo saw a guitar among tables of clothes, canned goods and toiletries donated to help Ukrainians fleeing the Russian army.

When it was offered to Kyrylo, he declined with thanks. What he really wanted was an accordion, like the one he had to leave in Ukraine. Bev Finnegan heard this.

She is co-founder of Waterloo Region Support for our New Ukrainian Neighbours. It runs a depot out of 130 Weber St. W. that is full of donated goods to help Ukrainian refugees set up apartments here.

Finnegan posted a message on the group’s Facebook page, asking if anyone had an accordion to donate.

Gary Kreller had one and was happy to oblige. He knows Finnegan from her days as the owner-operator of the Blue Moon in Petersburg, a popular live-music venue Kreller played in many times.

When the 66-year-old musician saw a YouTube video of Kyrylo playing, he didn’t hesitate.

“He is good,” said Kreller. “Kyrylo’s talent should not be allowed to wither because of some lousy war.”

Kyrylo started playing the accordion when he was six. So did Kreller, and at 16 Kreller joined Local 226 of the American Federation of Musicians and started playing professionally. He’s still playing, learning and performing with the Black Forest Band, The Gaes and Winnipeg Wind.

“Life makes me tired,” said Kreller. “Playing music invariably energizes me.”

He hopes for the same for Kyrylo. The mother and son are among hundreds of Ukrainians who arrived in Kitchener-Waterloo since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.

Natalia and her son fled to Lviv in western Ukraine at first. But after Russian missiles hit civilian targets there, Natalia grabbed her son and travelled to Poland, arriving March 25. When Natalia heard that Canada was quickly accepting Ukrainians fleeing the war, she contacted an old friend from college who is living in Kitchener. After borrowing $1,900, she bought tickets to Toronto and they arrived in Kitchener May 12.

She works in a meat-packing plant, 4 p.m. to midnight and has bandages on each hand.

“It is the hardest,” said Natalia through a translator. “We left without anything at all.”

She misses her husband, and Kyrylo misses his dad. Natalia wants him to come to Canada and settle here. Her husband stayed in Ukraine to help his parents.

The uncertainty is hard, said Natalia — not knowing when the war will end or when her family will be together again.

Natalia and Kyrylo lived in Zaporizhia, a city on the Dnieper River in southeastern Ukraine. That’s where Kyrylo and his dad used to go fishing. Russian missiles hit the Zaporizhia airport, a holiday spa and resort and some residential neighbourhoods.

“The sirens are constantly going off,” said Natalia. “The commercial centre, they also bombed.”

After Ukrainian refugees started arriving in Kitchener, Finnegan and others wanted to help. A local developer, Bernie Nimer, donated space in the building at 130 Weber St. W.

It has a large, central room where neatly folded clothes are arranged on bingo tables Around the edge of the big room are shelves with canned food, snacks, books, shoes, blankets and more. There at least four smaller rooms with more donated goods.

They set up a Facebook group, which now has 858 members and is updated four times a day. That social media group is an ongoing testament to the community’s generosity, said Melanie Todd, who cofounded the Waterloo Region Support for our New Ukrainian Neighbours along with Finnegan.

“If we need pillows, we put a post up and the next day people are dropping off new pillows — it’s incredible,” said Todd.

“We go through a lot of pillows,” said Finnegan. “Also food — pasta, rice, beans, that sort of thing.”