Town now has sister city in Ukraine

Donna Volpitta MEETING SCREENSHOT 

By THANE GRAUEL

The Pound Ridge Town Board on Tuesday agreed to a sister city pact with Zazymia, Ukraine.

Zazymia is a suburban area of Kyiv, Donna Volpitta told the Town Board, an area along the front lines of the Russian invasion.

The sister city arrangement was facilitated by Ukrainian Aid International, a Westport, Conn.-based group, and is the first in Westchester. The group has established sister cities for several Fairfield County municipalities — Ridgefield, Westport, Stamford, Easton, Weston and Fairfield. 

Volpitta is a Pound Ridge mother whose son, Marco, has joined the Ukrainian Army. He is undergoing NATO-sponsored training and has enlisted until July, Volpitta said. Town Board member Namasha Schelling, who is chair of the town’s Human Rights Advisory Committee, worked with Volpitta on the sister city effort.

“My son has been back and forth from Ukraine the past two years and he joined the Ukrainian Army in March,” she said. “He was telling me about the different organizations he thought were worth supporting. He’s on the ground there so he understands.”

She asked his sister to help raise money to buy an armored vehicle for the unit, Volpitta said, “and he asked me to arrange a sister city with Ukrainian Aid International.”

“Most of the sister cities of Ukraine Aid International are on the front lines,” she said, “... they would like New York City to be sister cities with Kyiv. They would like the suburbs of New York City to be sister cities with suburbs of Kyiv.”

The agreement, passed unanimously by the Town Board, reads in part:

“The Town of Pound Ridge and Zazymia Territorial Community agree that the establishment of a sister city relationship is a symbol of hope and friendship between the United States and Ukraine, and a commitment to peace, stability, and prosperity in the region.”

“They have matched us up with a suburb that is sort of similar to Pound Ridge,” Volpitta said. “We spoke on the phone with the mayor of the town and he was awesome, he was very young and he was voted in with 90% of the vote. 

“They would really like to have a cultural-business-education relationship, long term,” she said. “They don’t want this to be us fundraising all the time. They really want to set up with the schools to have some cultural exchanges.”

“They are getting missiles and drones coming in and they would like to raise funds for a fire truck,” Volpitta said. 

“Marco is really proud to be from Pound Ridge. He said he has 10576 carved into his belt,” Volpitta said of the town’s ZIP code.

Town Board members had questions about pronouncing “Zazymia” (Za-ZY-mee-ah) and the logistics of sending a fire truck overseas. Volpitta said Ukrainian Aid International buys them at auction, usually in Germany, and recently sent two, and an ambulance, to the front-line areas. The typical cost of a fire truck is about $15,000, she said.

“I think we could raise that pretty quickly in Pound Ridge,” one board member said.

Schelling said an event is being planned for the fall. Volpitta said a webpage and social media will be set up.

After answering a question from someone in the crowd about the Ukrainian suburb, Volpitta noted that leaders from the Zazymia area have fought on the front lines.

“Oh boy,” Town Supervisor Kevin Hansan remarked.