With sunflowers and Fender Stratocaster guitars, the Ukrainian Community of Morgantown is about to get its own soundtrack.
That happens Wednesday when six local bands take the stage at downtown’s 123 Pleasant Street music venue for a benefit concert to raise money for war-torn Ukraine, which has been under siege since Feb. 24, when Russian troops began spilling over its border.
Sunflowers will also be for sale from WVU’s Davis College Greenhouse. The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Lisa Di Bartolomeo, the WVU professor and administrator-turned concert promoter for the musical evening of altruism, said “community” is at the root.
Sets will be performed by Popshop Presents, The Mixups, Ted Kisko Trio, Pants Queen, Better Off as Animals, The Tom Batchelor Band and KAMI Presents: TIRED.
It includes, she said, the staff and management of 123 Pleasant Street and a host of other businesses associated with downtown.
The Grind, Phoenix Bakery, Quantum Bean, Table 9, Gene’s Beer Garden, Von Blaze, Casey’s Cauldron, BC Mac, Mario’s Fishbowl, Puglioni’s Pasta, Blonde Salon and Torch and Dagger Tattoo will offer up goods and services for a drawing also on the bill.
Tickets are $10 for the midweek event that begins at 7:45 p.m., she said. Doors open at 7 p.m.
“We’ve been a community since the beginning,” she said.
And the Ukrainian Community, she said, is just that: An international hodgepodge that always happens in a college town.
WVU is home to students from both Ukraine and Russia.
Di Bartolomeo has lived and worked in the region for her teaching and research over the years.
The professor in WVU’s Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics is a fluent Russian speaker who can also read Ukrainian.
She said she hopes that watching the plight of the country will make everyone fluent in the language of empathy.
As the war churns into its sixth month, a mix of hard-line decisions and heart-wrenching aftermaths have most recently dominated the news coverage.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, announced Sunday he was booting two top officials in his cabinet over charges of espionage with Russia.
That was also the day media outlets carried photographs of the open-casket funeral of Liza, a 4-year-old Ukrainian girl who died in a missile attack the Thursday before.
Krystyna Pelchar said while she doesn’t want to see such images and video — she’s also compelled to watch.
Because it’s home, she said. Because her family is still there, she said.
Pelchar is a 24-year-old Ph.D. student in political science who hails from Lviv, a sprawling city in western Ukraine that has been heavily shelled of late.
Her mother, grandmother and sister had opportunities to leave, but they insisted on staying, she said, so they could aid in the war effort.
Pelchar’s sister, who turns 18 next month, is dogged about staying and completing medical school there.
“If that’s even possible,” Khrystyna said.
“It’s very hard to watch the news,” she continued.
“It’s the same, every day,” she said. “I see the shelling and I start grieving all over again. I don’t want to get used to seeing because having no reaction is not normal.”
Watching the Ukrainian Community of Morgantown, though, has been amazing, she said.
To date, the community has raised more than $16,000, Di Bartolomeo said, with 100% of that going directly to the cause.
The money is wired to a WVU graduate student on the ground in Ukraine who uses it to buy medical supplies, shovels and whatever else is needed.
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