By 
On a fateful day in October of 2021, Ray Kuntz met Bersie Zellele, an exchange student from northern Ethiopia at a Carroll College leadership class.
It was by a stroke of newfound hope and courage that Zellele approached Kuntz, and it was by this exchange alone that the Global Student Refugee Initiative was born.
“The purpose of the GSRI is to give these students that were close to graduating and lost their opportunity to finish school, a chance to come to Carroll and finish,” said Ray Kuntz.
Born and raised in the small community of Belfield, North Dakota, Ray Kuntz attended Carroll College before going on to own his own business. While at Carroll, he received financial assistance in order to complete his education.
Since then, Kuntz has made it his mission to extend the financial hand which was lent to him to many students of Carroll College.
The horizons of this vision have since been broadened.
“What inspired me [to start the Global Student Refugee Initiative] was meeting Bersie and learning how desperate a situation she was in,” said Kuntz. “She was at Carroll on a one-semester state department program and was supposed to go back to a war. When she left her area, it got overrun by war, and already at that time two years ago, almost a million Ethiopians had been killed.”
Over the last several years, wars in both Ethiopia and Ukraine have threatened and ended many lives.
“It was about two years ago now, so it’s about a two-year anniversary of our meeting, and I was speaking at a Carroll College leadership class and talked a lot about faith – faith in myself and in God – tough times, and how you get through tough times,” said Kuntz.
“After the class, she was kind of hanging towards the back, wanting to talk to me, and then she came up to me when I was getting ready to leave. She said that coming into the class, to the war and everything else, she’d kind of really lost hope and that I had, that night, given her hope again.”
“I met Ray in my leadership class,” said Zellele, a senior sociology and health science major from northern Ethiopia. “I had coffee with him and Susie the next day, and they have become my family ever since.”
In their meeting, it soon became apparent how desperate the situation was that Bersie was supposed to be going back to in only a few short weeks.
“So that’s how she motivated me, just in making me aware of what’s going on,” said Kuntz. “And Susie and my goal is to bring awareness to Carroll of the horrible situation of both wars, the Ethiopian War and the Ukranian War.
“That led us to want to help other students from war-torn countries that had lost their ability to go to school, whether their college was bombed or whatever had happened, and that’s when we started the whole Global Student Refugee Initiative. So that they can finish here at Carroll and go on with their lives.”
What had once begun with Bersie, the GSRI family has now grown by seven, soon to be welcoming its ninth on Thursday, Nov. 2.
With war still ongoing in their home countries, three students have come from Ukraine (Veronika Fomishyna, Mariia Savchenko, and Anzhela Stoliar) and five from Ethiopia (Bersie Zellele, Andreas Zellele, Danait Kassa, Elda Seid, and Dagim Degaro).
“The most challenging part of leaving home was leaving your friends and families and everything you’ve established for a good amount of time,” said Degaro, a senior business management and marketing major from Ethiopia. “And living in such a different environment and weather is also another factor. Thankfully for me, it was super easy to adjust at Carroll because of the men’s soccer team. All my teammates and coaches have been such a huge part of my life since the first day I arrived to this campus. Knowing someone has your back no matter what makes a huge difference.”
“The most challenging thing [about coming to Carroll and the United States] was the thought of not being able to go back anymore,” added Veronika Fomishyna, a senior sociology major from Ukraine. “I saw it as my last chance to live fully, war took away a lot of things from our lives, and realizing this takes time (and still is hard to accept).”
With the opportunity they have been given, sometimes comes guilt.
“The most challenging thing about leaving my home to come here to learn was the feeling that I was leaving behind loved ones and family in a still war-torn country,” said Danait Kassa, a freshman English Writing major from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “I had the opportunity to leave for a more peaceful place while a great majority of them could not.”
She went on to speak about her transition to Carroll, and America as a whole.
“It was both hard and easy, I would say,” said Kassa. “Easy because I’ve been familiarized with American culture through various media that I could access through the internet, like movies, series, songs, pop culture in general.
“It was hard because the information I received about America still does not represent the whole as America is a big country with plenty of nuance from state to state. So there were still social cues I had to adapt to that weren’t expected in my culture, or by reverse, social cues from my culture that didn’t apply here!”
After their time at Carroll, they plan to use the skills they’ve learned to return to their home countries and give back to their communities.
“After graduating I have a huge plan to help the coffee farmers in Ethiopia,” said Degaro. “I want to minimize the long supply chain and I’ll create a huge international market for the farmers so they can get paid a fair amount of money for their hard work.”
“For those of you who know her, [Bersie] will graduate in May and is applying to Med school,” added Kuntz on behalf of Bersie’s plans after Carroll. “Her goal has always been to work in refugee camps back in that area if she can get to be a doctor.”
While some plan their life after Carroll, others have learned that life is best taken one day at a time.
“I have no plans that far,” said Fomishyna. “War taught me to look closer and do as much as I can right now. I can say that I am planning to have a lot of internships during the next two years. But after graduation, we will see!”
While this growing initiative has already changed lives, the need for more support increases every day.
On Tuesday, Oct. 10, at 5:30 p.m., the students and donors of the GSRI met in the Governor’s Room at the Silver Star Steak House in a small reception to commemorate the program.
“It really has become a Helena Community project,” said Kuntz. “There’s lots of people in the community of Helena, both the business and the individual people, that are contributing so that some of these students can go to Carroll.”
The night began with mingling and opening remarks by President John Cech, followed by personal, eye-opening stories from both Anzhela Stoliar, a sophomore international relations major from Ukraine, and Andreas Zellele, a freshman computer science major from Ethiopia.
They were followed by remarks from Ray Kuntz and Lieutenant Governor Kristen Juras, who attended as a representative of Montana’s Governor Greg Gianforte, a prominent donor of the program.
The special night ended with prayers from Bishop Vetter and the Rev. Patrick Beretta.
Not only is it important to honor the donors who have funded, and continue to fund such an impactful local and global initiative, but also to recognize the courage of these students as well.
“I think the best thing you can do is take the time to get to know these kids and make them feel welcome in your Carroll community,” said Kuntz. “If one of them is walking around, somewhat alone or lost because they’re different, that is not what Carroll is all about.
“So hopefully, you as students can wrap your arms around these students and make them feel part of Carroll, get to know them, teach them how to laugh the way you all laugh and do the kind of fun things you do, but truly make them a part of the Carroll community and make sure they’re welcomed.”
Lastly, Mr. Kuntz believes that this initiative is not just for the students of war-torn countries, but for the student body of Carroll as a whole.
“A lot of Carroll kids, much like myself when I was there, came from a small community and I lived in a small rural world,” said Kuntz. “I really didn’t have a feel for the world economy, for the effects of wars and all those things.
“So the students have an opportunity, by getting to know these students coming from war-torn countries, learning about the war, maybe learning about the effects of that war, on our lives here in America because the Ukrainian war is going to financially affect the world for the rest of our lifetime as we have to rebuild. And hopefully, it’ll allow the students to have their own opinion, instead of something they learned on some talk news show about the world.”
When speaking to him, Kuntz had a few last words to leave with the student body.
“I hope that at the end of the day, all of you will think about the gifts that you got and received like I did when I was there, financially, that someone decided to leave a gift that allowed me to finish my school,” said Kuntz. “Hopefully, all of you can look at that part of your own life so that when you leave you not only appreciate that, but think about your lives in the future and what you can do to help others when you can afford to.”
