Foodie Fundraisers Feed Growing Bay Area Solidarity With Ukraine
BENICIA (KPIX) -- As the war rages on in Ukraine, people in this country are searching for ways to help. On Saturday, those who make food for a living were putting their skills to work to help others during these desperate days.
In small towns and big cities, people are using the talents they have to raise money for the people of Ukraine. Puskin Restaurant in San Francisco is usually closed on weekends but it opened on Saturday for a special fundraiser. Owner Sergey Shukaylo was donating all the proceeds from the sale of piroshkis -- a traditional deep-fried pastry filled with meat, potato or vegetables.
One customer, Amir Burbea, was happy to contribute.
"Obviously, no one wants to go to physical war with Russia but we've got to somehow support the Ukrainians going through this," Burbea said. "So, if this is going to donate to them then by all means."
Aditi Lonhari, a self-described foodie, traveled from Half Moon Bay to contribute to the fundraiser and try a piroshki for the first time.
"I had heard of Pushkin but I hadn't had a chance to come try it out," she said. "This is the first time I'm trying Ukrainian food, so it's going to be an exciting thing for me."
Americans are learning a lot of new things about that part of the world. In the town of Benicia, the owner of One House Bakery, Hannalee Pervan, had to search for Ukrainian family recipes on the internet for her fundraiser.
"They were calling for, like, glasses of stuff, like 'two glasses of flour' and I was trying to figure out what a glass of flour was. Like, is it the equivalent to a cup?" she said, laughing.
From those recipes, the bakery team created 10 different pastries that they've been selling during the week to raise money for "Save the Children," an international relief organization providing food for Ukrainian refugees. Customer Elisabeth Gulick said the Russian attack has been so shocking in its brutality that she thinks it's creating a rare moment of common agreement in this country.
"I have a little bit of feeling that the country is actually pulling together on this," she said. "The country has been so divided, it's been so difficult to navigate everything the last three years so I think it's ironic that there's an extra point to it. It makes me feel good."
With the forces so immense and the stakes so high, people here have begun searching within themselves for what they can do and then doing that.
"It's hard to believe that it's happening," said bakery owner Pervan. "It's just, I don't know, you feel helpless and you don't know what you can do. So, you just think 'OK, how can I make some type of a difference?'"
The response from the public been gratifying. One House Bakery in Benicia sold out Saturday, nearly reaching its goal of $10,000. And Pushkin restaurant in San Francisco filled more than 100 online orders and was having to turn away walk-up customers by Saturday afternoon.
