In the first six months following the Russian invasion last February, some 13 million people were displaced. It’s Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. To respond to this vast and urgent demand for help, the U.S. government created a new visa program, Uniting for Ukraine, in April.

But the program requires something most refugees don’t have: a sponsor in the United States. How does a Ukrainian refugee find a sponsor in a country of 330 million strangers—especially if they’re 5,000 miles away, hiding in a bomb shelter? Especially if they don’t speak any English? And if you’re an American volunteer, how can you safely make contact with a Ukrainian who’s seeking your help?

With these questions in mind, Welcome.US, a non-profit initiative working to expand capacity to welcome newcomers to the United States through the increased and direct involvement of Americans, approached Goldman Sachs to propose they collaborate on a similar project for Ukrainians. A team of engineers at Goldman, led by a Ukrainian American refugee and a Russian American refugee, sought consulting advice on the project from Infosys and enlisted software company ServiceNow to build the website. From the final design to the day it went live, making Welcome Connect took just two and a half weeks—thanks to ServiceNow’s low-code platform, which can be swiftly customized, scaled, and implemented.

Welcome Connect bypasses barriers of distance, red tape, and language by matching Ukrainian refugees with Americans seeking to sponsor them. Within days of the site’s launch, some 5,000 Ukrainians were already communicating on it with prospective American sponsors, using its instantaneous text-message-translation feature.

While tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been granted parole in the United States, there are still thousands more in need of refuge as the war wages on with no end in sight. This is the story of two families: the Yeremenkos, of Kharkiv, Ukraine, and the Teiglands, of Kansas City, Missouri.