North Carolina Family Covers Ukrainian Flights To Safety

An anonymous North Carolina couple has donated hundreds of thousands of airline frequent flyer miles to help people fleeing Ukraine following the invasion by the Russian military.

Halyna Marchenko and her two children arrived at Raleigh-Durham International Airport from Poland earlier this week. Her sisters greeted them at the airport with flowers and balloons. She left behind her husband and had to walk for hours to get to Poland from Ukraine, but they were able to get to the US thanks to the generosity of the good Samaritans who provided the airline miles she used to get their plane tickets.

Marchenko is happy to be safe in the US with her children, but she worries for her husband’s safety and the safety of other Ukrainians who weren’t as fortunate as she was. “I’m lucky, but there are so many people in Ukraine, women especially, with children who are not so lucky,” she explains.