Fearing the worst for their loved ones trapped under the bombardments, a couple of pastry chefs of Ukrainian origin decided to donate the profits from a specially created dessert to directly help their community.
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“It’s not much, we don’t have thousands of dollars to send, but we know that on the ground it can make a big difference in helping families, the elderly in hiding or even soldiers who are defending Ukraine,” says Andriy Tsoy, 38, originally from Odessa in Ukraine and co-owner of the Alice & Théo pastry shop located on Wellington Street in the Verdun borough of Montreal.
With his business partner, Oleg, originally from Moscow in Russia, they decided to start making cream puffs in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
Profits from this coconut, passion fruit and blue pea flower flavored pastry go directly to friends and volunteers in Ukraine who help supply those stuck in the country.
“We created a special pastry with blue and yellow colors, like the flag, and all the money we receive, we will send it there. It’s a concrete gesture, ”explains the 38-year-old man, who cooks with his wife Hanna, from Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine.
Corruption
It is because they fear that the money sent to the Red Cross or other organizations will not make it into the hands of citizens that they launched this campaign to collect donations, explains the one who arrived in Canada almost 20 years ago.
“Unfortunately in Ukraine, there is a bit of corruption, and the money that comes in to help, some will keep it in their pockets rather than give it away. My wife’s little brother [qui a été enrôlé pour défendre le pays] told us that his battalion had received a lot of donations, and yet things are missing every day,” he adds.
Every day, Mr. Tsoy receives photos of purchases that have already been made thanks to the money he sends there by wire transfer.
“They can buy canned food, but also first aid products,” he says.
For Hanna Bespoiasko, it is also to help people like her 82-year-old grandmother that this campaign was born.
“She keeps telling me that she was born in World War II and will die in World War III. She wants to run away, but she can’t… She would have to drive more than eight hours to get to the border, it’s the journey that would kill her”, drops the 27-year-old young woman, who still hopes to wake up from a bad dream.
Unable to sleep
Since the start of the war, Mr. Tsoy and his wife have spent their time watching the news and checking that their friends and family are correct.
For the first few days, the couple went to bed every day at 4 a.m., or noon in Ukraine with the jet lag, to make sure everyone was fine, says Mr. Tsoy.
“At first, we couldn’t even sleep. I cried so much the first week that I have no more tears in my body, ”explains Mme Bespoiasko, who hopes to be able to make a difference in his country, even being thousands of kilometers away.
Reference-www.journaldemontreal.com