'Food Is How You Show Love' — Borscht-Making Class To Raise Money For Ukrainian Relief

HERNDON, VA — Iaroslava Dutchak finds it difficult to sum up the feelings she's had over the last week after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade her homeland.

"I feel devastated, sad, helpless, and angry," the Herndon resident said Monday. "I don't understand how Russian people can be so blind and ignorant. They believe all the lies Putin tells them. They also are scared to protest, which is upsetting."

But Dutchak also feels hopeful.

"Ukrainians have showed courage I feel I've never seen before," she said. "And the rest of the world stands with us like it never did before, too."

Iaroslava Dutchak first came to the U.S. eight years ago to get her doctoral degree from Clemson University. Her family moved to Herndon just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so they don't have a lot of connections in the community.

"The few friends we have here feel very sad and express their concern and tell us they pray for us and our country, always asking us what we can do," she said.

One piece of incredible luck is that Dutchak's sister, Elona, came to visit a month ago, weeks before the crisis in their homeland.

As Russian tanks swept into Ukraine on Sunday, the Dutchak sisters joined other demonstrators outside the White House to express their support for their country. Iaroslava Dutchak even brought along a plastic container filled with traditional Ukrainian cookies called "horishky."

"I made them and I was giving them out, because it's very sentimental," she said.

Food is not only a way for the Dutchak sisters to share their culture, it's helping them to raise money for humanitarian relief in Ukraine. Iaroslava Dutchak is contributing horishky as part of the Local Bakers Bake for Ukraine effort, which is selling boxes of baked goods to provide direct donations to a number of charities.

Radhika Murari, owner of OmMade Peanut Butter, was also looking for a way to help the Ukrainian people. Over the weekend, she was talking to her neighbors in a Reston Facebook group and made a connection with Iaroslava Dutchak.

As an Indian woman who owns her own food business, the answer seemed obvious to Murari. "Food is how you show love," she said and suggested that they do something together.

"I think I said, 'Basically, I want to do a fundraiser and maybe I can learn to make Ukrainian food, which I've actually never made in my life,'" she said. "I wanted to do something and I saw that World Central Kitchen had been there for a couple of days, at least, feeding the refugees."

Iaroslava Dutchak mentioned that she and her sister were going to make borscht and that was it — they would host a borscht-making class to raise money for the World Central Kitchen.

On Sunday afternoon, they launched the Cook for Ukraine fundraising effort. By 4 p.m. on Tuesday, they'd raised more than $7,800.

The Dutchak sisters will hold their borscht-making class from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at Murari's home in Reston. In-person participants are asked to donate $35 and above for each attendee. In addition to the class, they'll receive a bowl of borscht and some Ukrainian bread.

People can also participate remotely via Zoom. Remote participants are asked to make a donation of $20 or more.

"In the midst of all this other stuff, with people getting bombed and children being taken away from their families, it's just really beautiful, in our little corner of the world, that everyone's just like, 'Yeah, let's do this,'" Murari said.

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