When Dr. Vassyl Lonchyna placed the Order of Saint Panteleimon medal around Ed Ma’s neck on September 26, 2026, Ed noted that he felt the weight of more than twenty years of connection to Ukraine.
Ed first arrived in Ukraine in 2003 as a Peace Corps Volunteer, serving for two years in Dnipro. More than two decades later, he stood in the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Chicago to receive the 2026 U.S. Laureate of the Order of Saint Panteleimon, Ukraine’s highest medical honor, in recognition of his “significant support of the Ukrainian people’s struggle for freedom and independence.”
Ed’s Ukrainian host family had a place of honor at the Chicago ceremony, the same family who had welcomed him into their Dnipro home as a newly arrived Peace Corps Volunteer in 2003. More than twenty years later, their presence is a testimony to the enduring connections made during Peace Corps Service. In response to his receipt of the Order of Saint Panteleimon, Ed wrote, “My heart is full. And my work continues stronger as a result of this honor.”
A Peace Corps Beginning
Ed arrived in Dnipro as a Peace Corps Volunteer in early 2003. His Peace Corps experience offered not only an opportunity to live and work in Ukraine, but also personal relationships and a deep familiarity with Ukrainian communities that would remain with him long after his service ended.
After Peace Corps, Ed continued to live and work in Ukraine, including in Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv. Ukraine became, through his words and actions, a second home.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, those relationships became the foundation for Ed to create a citizen-led movement with extraordinary impact.
Like so many RPCVs around the world, Ed watched as a country that had become deeply personal to him faced an unprecedented crisis. But rather than simply watching from afar, he began asking what he could do to help. The answer? Ed’s Friends Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit founded in early 2022 to respond to urgent humanitarian needs.
What began as a grassroots effort quickly grew into a network providing targeted medical and logistical support to Ukrainians affected by the war.
From 40 Ambulances to Surgical Missions
In the first months of the full-scale invasion, Ed helped mobilize volunteers, raise funds, and procure emergency vehicles and medical supplies. He personally drove 40 ambulances from Poland into Ukraine, delivering them directly to tactical medics working in some of the most heavily contested areas.
The work continued to expand.
Since those early months, Ed’s Friends Ukraine has supported children’s hospitals and medical centers throughout Ukraine, including the Hospital of the National Guard of Ukraine and the First Separate Medical Battalion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Ed’s commitments included organizing medical missions to Ukraine, as well as facilitating extraordinary support when needed – including the travel of six-year-old Anna, who was severely burned in a helicopter crash at her kindergarten near Kyiv, to the United States for surgery through a partnership with LEAP Global Missions.
Today, Ed’s Friends Ukraine focuses heavily on organizing surgical missions that bring international medical specialists together with Ukrainian surgeons. Between 2022 and 2026, the organization helped facilitate more than 900 surgeries, including complex procedures involving facial reconstruction, oculoplastic surgery, and spinal injuries.
The organization has also helped transport more than $2 million worth of medical equipment from the United States to Ukraine, including advanced surgical systems and technologies. Some reconstructive procedures have utilized custom 3D-printed titanium implants donated by partners in Texas.
Ed has personally participated in 13 missions between the United States and Ukraine over the past four years, overseeing both surgical missions and the complicated logistics of moving sophisticated medical equipment across borders and into a country at war.
Building a Community Around Ukraine
The scale of this work is remarkable, but Ed’s contribution goes beyond logistics.
He has built a network of surgeons, medical professionals, donors, volunteers, and partners who trust him enough to join him in difficult and complicated work.
In their nomination of Ed for the Sargent Shriver Distinguished Humanitarian Award, Denise and John Capelli (RPCVs Ukraine and Peremoha mini-grant committee members) spoke about their own journey with Ed in April 2025 from Milwaukee to Dallas, Texas to help transport more than $1 million worth of endoscopic surgical towers destined for Ukraine. “During that journey we saw firsthand the immense coordination required to execute such a mission, from regulatory logistics and donor coordination to the careful stewardship of life-saving equipment. We also met many of the surgeons, volunteers, and partners involved in these efforts. Without exception, they spoke of Ed’s integrity, commitment, and ability to inspire others to join this cause. It was remarkable to see how many highly skilled professionals had rallied around his leadership because they trusted both his vision and his character.”
To ensure decision makers in Washington D.C. understand what’s happening on the ground, Ed has participated in every Ukraine Action Summit organized by the American Coalition for Ukraine on Capitol Hill. His perspectives as someone who has worked directly with Ukrainian surgeons, medics, hospitals, and defenders serve as direct testimony to the need for continued humanitarian and medical support for Ukraine.
Full Circle Journey
Ed’s RPCV journey is a powerful example of how Peace Corps service can continue to shape a life long after a Volunteer returns home. The Peace Corps Third Goal calls on Returned Volunteers to help Americans better understand other cultures and peoples. But for many RPCVs, that commitment also becomes something deeply personal: maintaining relationships, supporting communities, and continuing to show up for the people and places that became part of their lives during service.
For Ed, that commitment has taken him from a Peace Corps placement in Dnipro to the front lines of a humanitarian response spanning two continents. And it has brought him back to the people who welcomed him when he first arrived.
At the September ceremony in Chicago, Ed described watching a short film featuring Ukrainian and American friends and colleagues involved in the work of the last four years of war. Seeing those faces on the screen left him emotional. Then, he looked into the audience and saw his host family. The very people who had opened their home to him in 2003 were still present in his life more than twenty years later, watching him be recognized for helping their country.
Their presence may be the clearest picture of the Peace Corps Third Goal we can offer: a connection formed through service that lasts a lifetime, continuing to grow into new forms of service long after the Peace Corps experience itself has ended.
The RPCV Alliance for Ukraine offers our most heartfelt congratulations to Ed on his receipt of the Order of Saint Panteleimon for his extraordinary humanitarian work.
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