A mission of courageous kindness
World Central Kitchen has kept Ukrainians alive in a literal and emotional sense
Anna Bakumenko stands beside her destroyed home in a village near the northern city of Chernihiv, Ukraine. (c. Martin Kuz)
A Russian artillery attack had knocked out the electricity in Kurylivka again. A wood-burning stove provided the lone source of warmth inside the home of Natalia and Volodymyr Filonov, where the air felt almost as icy as the winter chill outside. They had stopped bothering to close the refrigerator door.
The couple could cook on their gas stove, and like most rural Ukrainians, they kept stores of canned meats and vegetables in the cellar. Still, with the fridge dead and the nearest grocery shop struggling to restock its shelves, the couple relied on World Central Kitchen to stave off hunger.
“They are like angels with food,” Natalia had said as we walked through snow along the rutted dirt road toward her house. She carried two plastic bags bulging with containers of soup and stew that she received from a WCK distribution site. The food would sustain her and her husband for a week — the limit to how far into the future they dared to look.
Russian forces seized Kurylivka soon after invading in February 2022. Ukrainian troops reclaimed the small town in eastern Ukraine that fall, and by the time I visited early last year, the pre-war population of 11,000 had dropped by two-thirds. Battered houses and incinerated buildings attested to the terror that residents endured. Most of those who remained were retirees, including Natalia and Volodymyr.
The boom of incoming and outgoing artillery echoed daily across frozen farm fields, reaffirming the war’s proximity in the town 20 miles from Russia. “This is not living,” Volodymyr said. “It is only surviving.”
Volodymyr and Natalia Filonov stayed in the eastern town of Kurylivka, Ukraine, even after shelling damaged their home and most of their neighbors fled. (c. Martin Kuz)
An artillery blast the previous summer blew out the home’s windows, collapsed a wall and shredded much of the roof. A shell fragment lying in an adjacent vacant lot offered sobering evidence that death could fall from the sky at any moment. Almost all of the couple’s neighbors had left. “You feel alone out here,” he said.
World Central Kitchen has proven vital for keeping Ukrainians alive in a literal and emotional sense. The group delivers food and kindness in equal measure, and its ongoing presence in Ukraine reassures people that the West — apart from obstructionist Republicans in Congress — continues to care about them and believe in their cause.
But I worry that the charity will pull back in Ukraine and elsewhere in the wake of the Israeli military airstrikes that killed seven of its workers in Gaza earlier this week. Such a decision would be entirely justified — and utterly devastating for people in countries where WCK represents a point of light in the gloom.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, friends and strangers have asked my advice when seeking to donate to aid organizations operating in Ukraine. They want to know that their money will help people in need rather than vanish into the black hole of “administrative costs.” I always mention World Central Kitchen.
Left: Russian shelling caused heavy damage to the Filonovs’ home. Right: An artillery shell fragment lying in an adjacent vacant lot. (c. Martin Kuz)
I support WCK for one primary reason beyond its high grades from Charity Navigator and Charity Watch. Across Ukraine, in large cities and isolated settlements, I’ve observed its workers and volunteers handing out hot and cold meals — more than 260 million, by the group’s count. Founded in 2010 by celebrity chef José Andrés, WCK supplies courageous compassion wherever missiles fall, from Chernihiv in the north to Kherson in the south, Kharkiv in the east to Lviv in the west.
On a bright summer afternoon four months into the war, I met Anna Bakumenko in a village outside Chernihiv, an area that had marked part of the front line earlier in the invasion. As with Natalia Filonov, I joined Anna as she walked home from a WCK distribution point, plastic bags filled with food containers hanging at her side.
We arrived at the ruins of her house within a few minutes. In January 2022, Anna and her husband, Oleh, moved into the space they had spent a decade building. Six weeks later, Russian shelling reduced their dream home to bricks and ashes.
The couple since had lived with her sister, whose nearby house survived the Russian onslaught. The fighting leveled much of the village along with the local economy, and as residents tried to reassert some sense of order, World Central Kitchen served as a reminder of normal life — of peace.
“We are so grateful for them,” Anna said. “They feed us and help us feel human.”
Etc.
— President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill this week that lowers the minimum draft age in Ukraine from 27 to 25 as the military attempts to shore up its ranks. I recently wrote about the country’s draft dilemma.
— The Associated Press profiled a Ukrainian volunteer who helps collect the bodies of soldiers killed on the battlefield. The story (and related video) is a portrait of humanity within the brutality of war.
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