Now, Lambros is preparing to do just that by opening her 100-year-old home in LaSalle, OD, just south of Windsor, to an 11-member family.
Some of the family members are due to arrive later this month.
“It sounds crazy to a lot of people, but I just felt the need to do more than write a check,” he told CTV’s “Your Morning” on Wednesday.
Her thought came after she saw the news one Sunday afternoon. He grabbed a section for two Harvard University students who set up a platform known as the Ukraine Take Shelter, which helps connect Ukrainian refugees with potential hosts.
“And I thought, ‘Wow, maybe they’d like to come to Ontario,'” Lambros said.
“So I thought I would reveal that I have a big house that can accommodate 14 people and be happy to have a family. I never dreamed I would really get, all from the same family, 11 people.”
The effort is one of many across the country as Canadians try to help the millions of people displaced by the conflict.
Among the family members destined for LaSalle are grandparents in their 70s, their son and daughter-in-law and two children, as well as their nephew, his wife, two children and his mother-in-law.
“How do you have so much and then lose it all in one day?” said Lambros. “For me, I could not even live what they are going through.”
Lambros, who lives alone with her two dogs in the Vernese Mountains, has eight bedrooms in her house and previously told CTV Windsor that it served as a restraining house, which was once frequented by the famous gangster Al Capone.
She plans to stay for a few days to help the family settle down before moving to her cottage.
“I just think it will be a wonderful, wonderful experience,” Lambros said.
