Marta Ostrovska. Photo by Orest Balatsko.
By Marta Ostrovska
Lviv Vegan Kitchen is a project that launched within the first week of the full-scale Russian aggression in Ukraine. In March of 2022, thousands of refugees came to this area fleeing war and many decided to stay. The initiative is named after Lviv, one of the biggest cities in the West of Ukraine.
This is how the idea of the kitchen appeared: We realized Lviv needs to have a comfortable and vegan space for refugees. We asked our friend Vitaliy, the owner of a vegan cafe, to rent out his kitchen. He agreed, and we began our service the very next day after the idea was conceived! Soon we were able to move to a larger, much more comfortable place with a bakery at 63a Chornovola Street.
Only vegan meals are served and all for free, not just for refugees, because obviously it’s not only people with this status who suffer economically from the effects of war. We also immediately began to ship humanitarian aid for vegans, both civilians and military personnel.
We have already shipped more than 1000 packages. I hope it will help!
The kitchen serves from 300 to 500 dinners every day, bakes tasty bread and sweets for children, and provides food for shelters, thanks to support of the worldwide vegan community. Further support is needed to maintain the scale of our work. Any assistance for this worthy cause is appreciated.
Marta Ostrovska is head of NGO Lviv Vegan Kitchen.
To Donate: awellfedworld.org/ukraine/
Photo by Orest Balatsko
For the full article from which this blog post is excerpted, see the current issue of American Vegan magazine (subscribe here).
