Announcing Our First Two Winners: The ENGin Friend of Ukraine Award
- Emily Gross
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Two thirds of our 32,000 volunteers have gone on to support Ukraine beyond the scope of their weekly meetings. Some are attending rallies, others are purchasing handmade products from Ukraine. Still others are volunteering with humanitarian causes, even traveling to see Ukraine for themselves. So the instinct to give more than what's asked isn't rare in our ENGin community — it is part of who we are.
Yet every so often, we come across extraordinary individuals who have turned their passion for helping Ukraine speak to the world into a personal calling. These volunteers aren't just showing up for our mission, they're investing their time, resources, and voices into securing a brighter future for our students.
Today, we're excited to announce two winners of the ENGin Friend of Ukraine Award. This special recognition is the first of its kind, celebrating individuals who lead through generosity and action in three critical ways: multiple years of sustained volunteer service with at least two students; broader community impact affecting Ukraine as a whole; and visionary philanthropy through ENGin's Tryzub Society*. Winners are hand-selected by ENGin staff, and chosen for the exceptional impact they've had throughout their length of service.
How a Gaming Session Led Lisa to Nine Ukrainian Students and a New Language
Lisa's path to ENGin began while online gaming. A fellow player kept mentioning "sirens" and then dropping offline. It turned out he was Ukrainian, living in Kyiv, and he was talking about air raid sirens. As they continued playing together, the stories he shared — waking in panic the night the full-scale invasion began, driving his family west with almost nothing, and sending recordings of what drones and explosions sounded like from his apartment and photos of his family in the basement — deeply affected her.
"I realized I had a choice to watch from the sidelines, or to find ways to support," she says.
She sent donations to United24 and Come Back Alive and wrote letters to politicians. Then she decided she wanted to help in a more personal way — through ENGin.
Over the past three years, Lisa has held one-on-one conversations with nine Ukrainian students, each teaching her, in her words, "the internal spirit of Ukraine" in a way that is "wonderfully different" from the next. One told her she dances as a way to heal; another, still finishing university, showed her that life can flourish even in darkness; a third — a journalist — opened her eyes to the human cost of war crimes through letters from displaced children to their former classmates living in temporarily occupied territories. Then, a fourth student, a career military officer, explained to her what service has been like during different periods of transition, peace, and invasion. Another, a veteran who returned to the front again and again, taught her what it means to choose Ukraine no matter where you were born. Her newest match, an active-duty defender, has shown her that even amid so much he can't yet share, what lights him up most is talking about his family and their hopes for a peaceful future.
That same pull toward understanding that began while gaming led her to learn Ukrainian herself, and a personal promise to keep studying it every day until the war ends.
"It has meant so much to text or leave a voice note for my friends during difficult times and say: Дуже шкода. Я люблю тебе. Бережіть себе. (I'm so sorry. I love you. Take care of yourself.) These are words we need during our hardest times, and sometimes hearing them in the language of our heart really matters."
Lisa has also pursued professional development in order to better serve her students — earning a CELTA certification and completing coursework on trauma-informed practices. As moderator of ENGin's Discord channel and an active contributor on other volunteer support forums, she is a steady, welcoming presence for other volunteers who have questions or seek advice throughout their own journeys.
For Lisa, ENGin is a daily practice.
"It seems like something is missing when I don't begin the day with an ENGin meeting," she says. All told, she says the students she's met through ENGin are "some of the best people I've ever had the joy and honor to know."
Sam Linton: Four Years of Volunteering, Five Students, and a Three Week Trip to Ukraine
Sam's path to ENGin also began unexpectedly. One month after the full-scale invasion began in Ukraine, he was on the other side of the world in the U.S. and injured in a near-fatal car accident.
"Someone had stolen a car and led the police on a high-speed chase and I was in the way," he says. During his recovery, he discovered ENGin on Twitter. "I had already started studying Ukrainian and I was interested in maybe helping some day doing English tutoring," he says.
In August 2022, he was matched with his first student, and thus, a new beginning.
Four years later, Sam just started meeting with his fifth ENGin student and describes every one of them as family. Their bond has grown so strong it's led him to travel to Ukraine. He has been to Kyiv and Dnipro, where he visited a classroom at a local school — an experience he still finds hard to put into words. In Lviv, he experienced his first church service in Ukrainian.
"The most moving experience for me was seeing the Field of Mars cemetery, where so many soldiers are honored," he says, adding, "I really, really look forward to going back."
Over time, Sam has also become one of our strongest community advocates, representing ENGin at the Ukraine Action Summit in Washington, DC, supporting other causes as a volunteer with Hugs From Friends, and founding the Arkansas Battalion of the 50 States for Ukraine campaign, working with Car for Ukraine. "Our first truck we fundraised for in Arkansas was delivered on Kyiv Day this year in Kyiv," he says. Earlier this month, one of his co-captains delivered a truck from the UK to Lviv. In the future, Sam says he would love to take part in handing off a truck going to the front line.
"I see Ukrainians improving their English as perhaps one of the biggest factors in their future integration in Europe and the world," he says, adding, "Ukraine is such a beautiful country, a democracy younger than me, a culture so much older than I can even grasp, and she has the most amazing people."
You can read more about Sam's journey with ENGin in his full volunteer story.
To our two inaugural Friends of Ukraine: thank you for believing in this work long enough, and loudly enough, to help it grow. We look forward to announcing our next award winners in spring 2027.
*If you are interested in learning more about ENGin's Tryzub Society, please contact Emily, egross@enginprogram.org.
