Friends of Henderson family raising money to help Ukrainian relatives

Friends of a Henderson family are raising money to help their Ukrainian relatives start a new life in the Las Vegas Valley.

Yana Wallace’s brother and his family of four escaped Ukraine with just one suitcase and are now living with her in Henderson, according to a GoFundMe page created by friend Jacque Scott.

Wallace’s brother and his wife, his daughter and son traversed mountains to the Ukrainian border after the Russian invasion into the country and reached the Las Vegas Valley last week.

Wallace’s parents still live in a Ukrainian city “that, at this point, is logistically harder for them to leave,” the GoFundMe page said.

The page hopes to raise money for the family — in need of new clothing and other necessities — as they attempt to start over in the U.S. Wallace is from Ukraine and lives in Henderson with her husband, Brandon.

“It’s a very difficult time for our family,” Wallace said in a Messenger app.

Wallace, whose Facebook page also identifies her as Yana Labyak, and her family declined an interview request. The GoFundMe page organizer, Scott, deferred comment to the family.

The page was created Monday and had raised nearly $2,000 of its $5,000 donation goal as of late afternoon Tuesday.

Multiple GoFundMe pages have sprung up locally, nationally and internationally to help raise funds for families affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine.

One such page created by Las Vegas man Mark Davis and his nonprofit, Abundance International, has raised nearly $500,000 to support Ukrainian orphans through donations to orphanage staff or volunteers for food, diapers and other essentials.

The nonprofit page’s donation total sat at $498,286 as of 4 p.m. Tuesday.

“We’re just going to do the most good that we can and as far as it lasts, we’ll continue to support those,” Davis told the Review-Journal last week.

Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter.