We are running out of flour in Hell’s Kitchen

As reported in the last blog, we lost our main flour donor several months ago and we’ve been using up current stocks. The last delivery, about 2 weeks ago, will keep us going for about another month.

The fresh food produced in Hell’s Kitchen, 365 days a year, is vitally important to the city's hospitals, where it's mostly delivered. Hospitals continue to operate in very difficult conditions as Kharkiv is so close to the frontline (under 20 miles); there are daily bombings, deaths and terrible injuries to soldiers and civilians, who mainly receive treatment in Kharkiv city. The need for our hospitals to have good, nutritious food to aid patients’ recovery is as great as ever. The people in this excellent, moving video (made by a journalist friend of the kitchen) say it best of all.


The bakery and kitchen use about 3000 kg flour per month, which costs about 54,000 UAH  (just over £1000 or about US$1300). We're hoping to find an organisation that can make an ongoing funding commitment. I had an idea of a restaurant 'twinning' with Hell's Kitchen (like town twinning/sister cities) or a celebrity chef.


I posted an appeal to our alumni volunteers, asking if they can help or if they have contacts, e.g. someone involved in the food industry. We had a response from Felicity Spector, a UK Channel 4 food journalist and author, who visited the kitchen twice last year and heard about the flour situation. She donated $5,000 USD, which will provide bread for almost 4 months! It's an amazing contribution but we really need a permanent solution.

In the meantime, if 100 people gave £10 per month, Hell’s Kitchen could carry on baking bread. Please help if you can. I can forward donations or you can donate directly to Hell’s Kitchen PayPal pekelna.kitchen@gmail.com
Another option is https://buymeacoffee.com/hellskitchen.ukraine - "With only $10, we will easily feed 5 people affected by the war with  full lunch."

It's not hard to see, reading the daily news here, how hospitals in the region are overwhelmed, just considering the last week alone. On the morning of 1 February, a Russian missile struck this residential building in the city of Poltava, just west of Kharkiv, killing14 people, including three children. 


On Tuesday, 4 February, a Russian ballistic missile hit a council building in the middle of Izium, in the southeastern Kharkiv region, killing five civilians, including a pregnant 19-year-old woman and her sister, and wounding 55, including many local government and social services workers, and three children.


There have also been attacks on districts in Kharkiv city itself. At about 11:15 pm on Wednesday, 5 February, a Russian drone hit the city's largest market. Curfew is at 11pm so, fortunately, there were no casualties. Had the market been hit during the day there would have been carnage. As it is, the destruction is still devastating. More than 100 shopping stalls were destroyed or damaged, and untold quantities of stock destroyed - pure terrorism and the destruction of livelihoods.



Also hit was the hub of the Kids Programme, run by the Canadian charity, HUGS. 
 https://www.instagram.com/hugsukraine/


However, life goes on, as normally as possible, which, for me, has included attending a concert in Kharkiv for the first time, in a safe underground venue.



"English with Fiona" met for the second time last Sunday afternoon. It was slightly more chaotic because there were a few more people in the cafe, which is really too small to accommodate our group. We even had the man at the next table joining in - he spoke pretty good English!


I'm very luck to have the help of a volunteer who is an English teacher.


We spent a lot of time on pronunciation. Some sounds are so difficult - the way we pronounce "Ukrainian," for example...


But the group is very keen - they practise in the kitchen and they even want homework! One of the group has found another venue for us. 

As always, a big thank you for donations, including from the collection box in Trawden community shop. Money has gone towards nutritional drinks for a severely disabled refugee child, supported by Adults For Children...


...camouflage nets and frameless stretchers, which require paying for the work of a seamstress, pictured below.





To make a donation, please:
Open PayPal and, when asked for email, enter sunflower_house@hotmail.co.uk
If you would like to donate money to buy flour, please type BREAD 

These are the causes I regularly donate to - you can specify where you would like your money to go, otherwise I will send it where the need is greatest:
Adults For Children, which supports families displaced by the war.
Hell's Kitchen
Franklin Orosco, Hell's Kitchen foreign volunteer coordinator, who supports local soldiers and medics.
Fabric for camouflage netting/seamstress costs 

Some people like to donate to charities that support stray dogs and cats, which can also be specified. 

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