Edmonton businesses step up to help provide aid to Ukraine

A number of Edmonton businesses have been getting creative over the last week to find ways to support Ukraine.

Vitalii Petrechenko, the owner of Tisto Cakes, immigrated from Ukraine to Canada in 2019 with his family and opened up a bakery on the edge of the city.

He told CTV News Edmonton his hometown is about 500 kilometres from Kyiv, and a lot of his family and friends still live there. Because of this, he knew he wanted to help.

“It was unreal to understand that people who you felt all your life as your neighbour, as your brother started war actions against your country.”

Petrechenko made a post on Facebook last week, saying the bakery would donate its Saturday sales to a Ukrainian charity. The turnout was overwhelming.

“Four times more people arrived on Saturday and it was very difficult to serve them even,” he said.

About $4,200 was raised that day.

Petrechenko said that's “huge money” for their small business.

Another bakery just outside Edmonton also got involved with the initiative and whipped up some cookies to help support Ukraine.

The founder of Confetti Sweets, Kathy Leskow, said she and half of her staff are Ukrainian, so it was important to them to give back.

Leskow said they created sugar cookies rolled in gold and blue sprinkles to represent the country’s flag.

In just three days, the shop raised $10,000 for the Canada-Ukraine Foundation.

“It’s actually kind of overwhelming that the community supports this so much,” she said.

And the fundraising isn’t over just yet, Leskow said her staff have continued to work around the clock to bake cookies, and will continue to make them until they run out of sprinkles.

“We’ve been kind of cleaning out the city slowly of them,” she laughed.

“When I opened my cookie shop eight years ago I never thought we would do good in the world with cookies.”

Other businesses are also doing good to provide relief to Ukraine.

The owner of Sweet Convenience, Laurie Radostits, said she’s been chipping in by auctioning off blue and gold candies.

“What’s happening is horrible,” she said. “I wish there was more we can do to help.”

On top of local fundraisers, Edmontonians can continue to donate to charities like the Red Cross as well where the federal government is matching donations up to $10 million to help bring aid to Ukraine.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Joe Scarpelli