TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. (WFLA) — The holidays bring a lot of happiness for many people, especially one Tarpon Springs High School student who is thankful she can celebrate in safety here in America.
Dasha Chabaniuk is a Ukrainian refugee who left her country at only 13 years old.
She has had to experience things most of us could never think of.
“It was really scary, and it was really sad to leave my family,” Chabaniuk said. “Obviously, because I have never left my country as much. In the moment, I knew I wasn’t going to come back for a while. So, it was kind of hard to understand this.”
She left her hometown of Mykolaiv, Ukraine at a young age, and came to America in April 2022.
“They had to leave their house with basically no notice at all,” said her grandfather Bruce Ahrens. “The Russians decided to start putting rockets and bombs in her town, and they left the next day.”
She has grandparents, cousins, and pets that she had to leave behind.
Now, at 16 years old, she has worked through the trauma by joining the color guard at her school.
She said her grandfather encouraged her.
“He was telling me that color guard is basically like dancing,” Chabaniuk said. “I was like, ‘Oh, that sounds fun.’ So, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll try.’ It was really hard at first, but then when you meet new people and it’s getting so much better, and you’re getting close with them, it’s like my second family now.”
The high school junior practices all of the time with the people she loves.
“It just makes me forget about everything and just enjoy the moment I have,” she said.
She hopes to be able to go back home to see her family, but in the meantime, she has a message to other refugees in America.
“You should really appreciate the moment you have, because you never know what can happen,” Chabaniuk said.
She is celebrating the holidays in safety with her family and friends.
“What she’s done to date now, in her third year of high school here with the color guard program, has given her so much confidence,” Ahrens said. “I’m extremely proud to be her grandpa.”
Chabaniuk hopes for many things in 2025. First, for the war to end. But also, that she does well on her SATs, continues to study, do color guard and be happy.
