Volunteering raises spirits

Renate, a Business Transformation Leader at GF Casting Solutions in Schaffhausen (Switzerland), has hosted people several times who were no longer safe in their homes. “I love my job and really enjoy working,” she says. “Our GF values, especially the one focused on caring, align with how I lead my own life. Being there for others and treating them as you would want to be treated yourself is a principle I uphold even when I’m not at work.”

Liudmyla found it difficult to deal with not having both daughters in a safe place, and she was worried about her sick mother. She had planned to return home to care for her mother as soon as she could. When her older daughter Alexandra finally came to visit in early June, Renate and Liudmyla were able to convince her to stay, which left Liudmyla with one less thing to worry about. And it was one more person for Renate to help. “Alexandra meant that all at once there were seven of us in our single-family house,” she recalls. “It didn’t go unnoticed. The weekly groceries had doubled and there were twice as many things to do around the house. But by working together, we pulled it off very nicely.”

The Stadelmanns’ house acted as a surrogate home to the refugees from May 2022 to January 2023. They all felt very close during this period, enjoying some deep conversations and a lot of laughs, too, in spite of all the sadness about what was happening in Ukraine. “ Something much bigger developed from the initial thought of acting out of duty to help: we had a family. We’ve really grown close to each other,” Renate realized in retrospect.

The time really flew by. Mariia earned her high school diploma by attending online classes in Ukraine from Germany. She and her sister Alexandra taught German to refugees as part of a course to help new arrivals adjust to the language and life in Germany. Liudmyla learned German in no time and was soon giving talks on relief efforts for Ukraine. As a musician, she held concerts to raise money. And she organized the transport of relief supplies. In September, Mariia moved to Konstanz to study at university. Alexandra joined her there in December, because she had quickly found a job at a regional media company thanks to her training as a marketing specialist. Then, at the end of January, Liudmyla returned to Ukraine. “The three of them have achieved so much in such a short amount of time. It was a wonderful gift to be a part of this with them,” says Renate.

And she hopes that one day she will have a home large enough so friends can simply drop by at any time and stay for longer periods, if necessary. “Not just when they are in a bad situation. After all, the worst thing is when someone you’ve grown close to moves on. If we owned a large farm, they could come back and visit us any time they wanted.”