Irina Garmash-Creeger, a Ukrainian-born Woking resident says "the community spirit is alive" in Surrey.
With the highest number of arrivals in the UK, the county has welcomed 3,952 Ukrainians.
Along with Carolyn Drury-Burroughs, Irina has played a key role in supporting the "challenging" application process for the Homes for Ukraine scheme.
Irina said as people approached her and Carolyn for help with the process they created their own system to match hosts to guests.
She explained: "I could see that people will be easily matched if they knew each other, so the solution was very simple, we started doing interviews for people looking for sponsors and people wanting to be hosts."
The pair recognised the need to consider "the human factor".
After submitting 200 applications, Irina said they lost count. "We were helping anyone we could.
"In the beginning, it was 24/7 calls and interviews every single evening. We had to consider some people were underground and couldn't make a call."
Comentarios