Here's How to Help Ukraine From PDX
From Portland to Ukraine, with love.
Image: vectorissimo/Shutterstock and Katie Leimbach
The unfolding conflict in Ukraine, though thousands of miles away, is personal in Oregon, which is home to one of the largest populations of Ukrainian-speakers in the United States. Accordingly, people all over town are finding creative ways to help the Ukrainian people in the face of the Russian invasion, from arts sales to vodka to direct aid. Here are just a few ways you can help too.
Local artist Tatyana Ostapenko, (follow her at @postsovietart on Instagram), is selling all of her art and donating 100 percent of the proceeds of every piece sold to GlobalGiving’s Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund. As Ostapenko, who is originally from Kharkiv, Ukraine, said in a recent Instagram live “I feel powerless, but I don’t want to feel powerless.” In just five days, Ostapenko has raised over $26,000 selling her work, which is “directly focused on the historical atrocities in that part of the world, as perpetuated by the few who hold the power, against the many who suffer,” she says.
"Manna for the Masses" by Tatyana Ostapenko.
Tigard-based Medical Teams International is sending donated medical supplies including sutures, surgical kits, and medical drapes to health centers in Ukraine to equip medical professionals to care for those impacted by the war. On March 3, the nonprofit will be sending a staff field operator to Poland, to which a large number of refugees are fleeing, in order to “assess how they can provide medical care to displaced Ukrainians in the coming weeks." Medical Teams International is partnered with the Ukranian-American Cultural Association of Oregon and Southwest Washington, which is currently hosting ongoing fundraising efforts to provide emergency medical supplies to Ukraine.
T Project, an organic tea shop in Northwest Portland, has launched a fundraising effort called “Holding Hands with Ukraine.” The store will be donating 25 percent of their sales to Direct Relief, a non-profit committing $500,000 to provide medical supplies, food, and humanitarian relief to Ukraine. Owner Teri Gelber announced “Holding Hands with Ukraine” by sharing a photo of a painting from famous Ukranian folk artist, Maria Prymachenko, to Instagram. Twenty-five of Prymachenko’s pieces, along with several other cultural Ukranian treasures, were recently destroyed in a museum burned by Russians, north of Kyiv.
Kachka interior.
Image: AJ Meeker
Kachka, a Russian restaurant in Southeast Portland, is donating 100 percent of the proceeds from certain menu items to the Red Cross in Ukraine for the foreseeable future. The Chervona Wine cocktail is among these items, and since beginning the “Chervona fundraiser” Kachka has raised over $1,000. Kachka is also working to create a Ukrainian dumpling which will be sold frozen at both Kachka Lavka and New Seasons, and plans to donate the proceeds to the #CookforUkraine campaign, a developing global fundraising effort which is raising money for UNICEF.
Portland Potato Vodka will be donating 10 percent of sales of their 1.75 liter bottles sold for the next four months. The funds will be donated to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), an organization that is working to support displaced families and refugees, including Ukrainians displaced by war.
