Could you tell us a little bit about your personal and professional background?
First, I should say that I’m originally from Ukraine, and this is my third year here in the US. I moved to the US in 2022 after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, so it wasn’t my choice, but I needed to just grab my kids and to find a safe place.
In Ukraine I had a really good job. I was the Deputy Director of the Kiev Metro System – it’s a big public transport system that services up to 1.5 million passengers a day. I’ve been working in communication and marketing for at least the last eight years, and at the Kiev Metro, I was responsible for all our social and cultural projects.
For example, we did exhibitions, art shows, and music shows. A lot of famous people came to us to make movies, and we helped gaming companies shoot necessary material for video gaming. I had so much fun and loved helping people.
We have one of the deepest stations in the world, about 100 meters underground. Now all these stations serve as shelters for people during attacks, and they really help to save lives. It is also one of the most beautiful metros in the world. All the stations’ architecture is amazing, and I felt like, “Wow, for real I work here and I can touch it every day. I have this privilege.” I think that I shared my love of the Metro to give experiences to a lot of people because we created a community there.
Why did you decide to join the Library Foundation of Hillsboro?
It’s important for me to feel that I am a part of the community, so when we moved to Hillsboro I started thinking, “OK where can I meet the real community in Hillsboro?” Where I used to live, in a big city with almost 4 million people, people were always in the street. Here, though, everyone lives in their own house. You never see people in the street. I wave hi and bye and that’s it, and it wasn’t enough for me. So I thought that library probably would be the best place to go and to find community.
I found the Hillsboro leadership program, and when I applied I thought, “OK they will reject me for sure because I’m just a newcomer, what can I know?” But I wanted to share my experience if they needed any experience from Europe…they accepted me. I met someone from the library there, and I asked her how I could join the community. She told me to go to the library, so I started volunteering and was introduced to the Library Foundation.
What is your role at the Library Foundation of Hillsboro?
I’m trying to help with social media. It’s challenging for me because I’m not super fluent in English, so I try my best. I understand that it’s not my native language and I need to check and recheck, write and rewrite everything 100 times! Also the Library Foundation has its own pool of readers, and you need to consider for whom you are writing, so it’s challenging for me, but it’s really interesting.
Also I like volunteering at the Library Foundation fundraising events to help as much as possible, including taking photos. And, of course, I can meet the awesome authors!
What are some projects that you have worked on at the Library Foundation of Hillsboro that are especially meaningful to you?
A project that was very important personally was adding Ukrainian books to the World Language Collection. Thanks to that initiative, the Hillsboro Library has 100 books in Ukrainian. Each of those books are written by good authors and hold culturally relevant stories – they come from important publishers in Ukraine.
The year that the Library Foundation invited Nicholas Kristof was very significant. Shame on me, I had never heard of him before…but I learned about him and found out that originally Nicholas Kristof’s grandmother was from Ukraine. So during the event, I gifted him some Ukrainian sweets, and since I was prepared after learning about him and discovering all the important social events he had covered, like wars, conflicts, etc., I just thanked him for that and asked if he would want to visit Ukraine. As I had been working at that time for the Superhumans Center – the biggest Health Center for people who have lost their limbs due to the war – I offered to connect him with them.
He answered yes. At first, I couldn’t believe that this world famous author from the New York Times, a writer that has a real impact on American society and culture, would really go to Ukraine, visit our center, and talk to our guys. Well, he did and he wrote an important article in the New York Times called They’re Ready to Fight Again, on Artificial Legs. I was really so proud of myself, but at the same time I was thinking, “Hey it happened just because I was volunteering at the Library Foundation, and you never know when a really big event can happen in your life, but education always will help.” This experience showed me that this is the right place with the right people, and I need to do as much as I can.
What have/do books and libraries mean in your life?
In my life, I don’t know how it happens, but in any space I start living, the first thing that happens is that books start appearing everywhere. When I sold my first house in the Ukraine and was moving my library to my parents house, my parents said, “Oh my gosh, most people move cars or jewelry, and you are with your tons and tons of books!”
I see books as people. I see them as my community. So when I go to the library and see all these shelves with all these books – thousands of them – I’m thinking, “Wow, these are all people, and each of them wants to tell me something. What do I feel like? What am I open to in this period of my life?” And then you choose a book to be your friend.
Guys, your Hillsboro Library is so amazing! I want to have at least one library like this transported to Ukraine to show people how a library can work and how many services it can provide to people.
What are 5 library functions or services that you think that you would like to transport into other places?
The main function is providing books – it should of course be that way anywhere.
Beyond that:
- The Library of Things is so awesome! You can borrow a lot of things and you don’t need to buy them. Things like musical instruments, a popcorn machine or something for cooking, or also games if you have a party. I was really impressed that people use everything very carefully and that when you borrow a thing it’s always clean. I understand that it’s part of the library staff’s work to check everything. People really care about that, even the visitors.
- The Collaboratory. You can just come and do whatever you want – 3D printing, heat press, I don’t know, knitting. From time to time you have people who will teach master classes.
- Working with your documents. Staff can answer all the questions you have. I don’t know how they do that – maybe some extra training, but if you ask questions you can be sure that you will get an answer. If something is not in the library, usually people will direct you where to go, beyond library services. You can prepare your resume, print out all your documents, get notary services…
- Meeting rooms. You can book rooms if you have meetings, or just if you need to have space for online classes or Zoom. Again, you can book that for free and you have everything there, like a microphone, a laptop, a whiteboard.
- Events and services. There are storytimes, citizenship classes, art shows, classes in the Collaboratory. It’s really a Community Center where people from different communities come, and you can really meet people there. I can see how much work is behind it. The Library is like a point of connection for all the communities in Hillsboro.
What are some things that you would like our Hillsboro community to know about the Library Foundation of Hillsboro?
The Library Foundation is not limited, as a library is, by government funding. The Library Foundation is not limited in choices and that’s why it can develop very amazing projects like inviting really amazing authors, creating the Generous Words initiative to buy books for 16 tiny libraries and other outreach programs.
One more thing I want to share is that some of the board members are my parents’ age, and I was really impressed with how open they are to new ideas. When I joined the Library Foundation I was thinking, “Hey who’s going to listen to me? I’m just kind of a stranger from Ukraine for them.” But I saw that all the board members were really listening, and if the idea or some kind of project works, everyone will discuss it and explain their thoughts with you, and if people feel that it’s interesting, they’ll try to find funding for it.
Do you have any final thoughts about your time with the Library Foundation of Hillsboro?
Now I feel that all of these things – that sometimes you think they slip into your life just by chance – they’ve led to the right path for me. I feel that I’m in the right place with the right people, and I feel that I have my little impact on the health of the community.
