Time to give thanks
Here’s to all of the amazing bakeries and volunteers we are privileged to support across Ukraine - and to my friends at Bake for Ukraine, whose energy and commitment keep it all going!
Time to give thanks. Thank you to all of you who keep standing with Ukraine, who've donated money or time or just cared enough to stay engaged. My friends at Bake for Ukraine have been continuing to work hard to raise money and awareness so that we can keep supporting the volunteer bakeries who bake free bread and make sure it gets delivered to those who need it most, sometimes just a few miles from the frontlines. To our bakery friends in Kharkiv, in Izyum, in Bucha and Kyiv, in Odesa and Mykolaiv and Kherson, we are truly grateful for every day you spend at work, days when there are drone and missile attacks, nights full of sirens and the work of air defence, days when it is cold and dark and when you might feel alone - we are here to say that you are not alone. We are with you as you knead the dough and shape loaves and wait patiently for them to prove, we are here as you pull bread from the oven and pack it into boxes for delivery. We are with you as you drive on the coastal road through Mykolaiv region to Kherson, or down the H20 highway through Kramatorsk. We are so grateful for your dedication and your courage.
Someone taking a rest from deliveries in Kherson!
This week my friends at Bake for Ukraine were able to spend a day at the German Bundestag in Berlin, selling Ukrainian palyanytsya bread for the first time in the parliamentary cafe. A number of senior politicians came along to buy loaves of bread and make a donation, including the vice president of the Bundestag, Kathryn Goring-Eckhardt, and the German finance minister Christian Lindner. We are grateful to the head of the Foreign Affairs committee, Michael Roth, for making it all possible - as well as a wonderful volunteer Karsten Furken, who I was able to meet a few weeks ago - he has done incredible work taking lorry loads of supplies into Ukraine, as well as helping children and refugees. We are looking forward to working together with him once we get the mobile bakery on the road.
Palyanytsya in the Bundestag! 📸Tetiana Savchenko
All of this is a team effort: every donation, all the logistics, the planning and collaborations can only happen thanks to the superb volunteers who give up so much time and energy and expertise. And of course, in wartime, nothing is ever straightforward: for example, we just got a very generous donation of baking tins and proofing baskets from Gail's Bakery - then came the challenge of working out how to get them transported from London to Ukraine. After a lot of messaging to various volunteer whatsapp groups, we have hopefully found someone who will be driving to Kyiv early in the new year. Give me time, and I might turn into one of those people who comes up with some kind of positive thinking mantra like 'Every problem is just a solution waiting to happen!' Such is the power of bread. Now all we need is a more secure source of income for next year, to provide more consistent support for the bakeries. A solution, waiting to happen.
