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On behalf of the Ukrainian Community in KC – Ukrainian Club of Kansas City and Stand With Ukraine KC non-profit, we would like to thank the Parade of Hearts Board for helping to create the heart, the National WW1 Museum and memorial for hosting it and Jeremy Collins who brought it to life. Kansas City is known as America’s Heartland and Ukrainians are grateful that the heart of KC is beating in unison with the heart of Ukraine. Your supports shows Ukrainians that they are not alone as they are fighting protecting their lives, their families and their country. Every nation has the right to be independent and we all have the right to freedom and happiness and life under a peaceful sky. And that what Ukraine is fighting for now. And that’s what we are asking for – to stand with us supporting Ukraine in their pursuit of freedom. What is happening right now in Ukraine is not just terrible war, it’s Russia committing a genocide to Ukrainians.
Parade of Hearts unveiled new heart statue in support of Ukraine in front of the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City on April, 28, 2022. “We are with you” heart was created by a local artist Jeremy Collins and it features the artwork of displaced Ukrainian children who are now in a refugee center of Romania. The drawings are plastered to the base of the statue under the large fist molded into a heart. They are simple drawings with difficult and poignant messages, but you can still see signs of hope.
‘As artists, as musicians, as writers, we all try to figure out, says Jeremy Collins, ‘well, if I can’t go out and help in person, what can I do?’ So, I did a small drawing of this heart fist, which is a response to all the atrocities and tragedies for humanity in the world. Now we have this large physical heart that we can pass on to our Ukrainian neighbors.”