About Us
In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine and set off a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. President Biden began creating the second iteration of the program known as Humanitarian Parole where refugees are not offered asylum or permanent status in the United States but are allowed in with full privileges except voting for two years – a safe place to go until they can return home.
At that time, a generous donor provided funds to St. Andrew Lutheran Church designated for relief for Ukrainian refugees and the church council agreed to accept the gift designated for that purpose. Pastor Jonathan Vogel of St. Andrew Lutheran Church and Art Worster, our president and founder, set to figure out how to honor this commitment. They began trying to locate an organization to help their mission. In late summer of 2022, they found WelcomeNST, a non-profit out of the Boston area that was tied to the U4U program (Uniting for Ukraine), and had people on the ground in Ukraine to interview, screen, and match families to organizations in the United States.
At the same time, Pastor Jon and Art were trying to figure out how to support all of the activities that would be required to properly support relocating a family to a new country. They concluded that we had to expand our reach. They theorized that if we could create an organization responsible for a refugee program, it would allow many other congregations and organizations alike to participate in supporting that effort. At that moment, the concept of Hancock County NST was born.
Since then, we have only strengthened our organization by adding 7 board members, accumulating 150 supporters, and welcoming two Ukrainian families to Hancock County.
