Aaron Saks wanted to find a way to raise money for the people of Ukraine. The scale of the devastation in the country seemed colossal, he said, so he started out small.
With a sunflower seed.
Saks is the president of West Coast Seeds, a company headquartered in Ladner, B.C., near Vancouver. The company is donating 100 per cent of its sales of sunflower seeds during March to the Canadian Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal.
Sunflowers are Ukraine’s national flower and have emerged as a global symbol of solidarity for the country.
“We thought it would be a perfect way to honour them,” he said.
Their campaign has raised more than $21,000 in the first few days. They’ve been barely able to keep up with the demand, he said.
The fundraiser is one of hundreds of ways Canadians are getting creative in raising money for charities assisting in the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
More than 2 million Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Millions more have been displaced inside the country.
From renting Ukrainian Airbnbs with no intention of visiting to selling digital artwork, people are using the power of the online marketplace to send money to those in need on a scale that hasn’t been seen before, said Kate Bahen from Charity Intelligence Canada, which uses evidence-based research to assess the impact of a charity’s work.
For Canadians wondering whether to donate goods or money, Bahen said research shows cash is far more effective for people in a disaster, because it’s versatile.
“Giving people cash gives them resilience, gives them capital to be able to meet their needs,” she said.
She said any support is good but donors should do their research to make sure their money gets to Ukrainians as quickly as possible.
“The last thing you want is for your support to be in a Canadian bank account two years from now,” she said.
3D-printed figurines
In recent weeks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has become an international icon.
He is the inspiration for a unique fundraiser in the world of 3D-printed fantasy action figures. A figurine called The Hero of the Golden Fields — a reference to Ukraine’s wheat fields — is modelled off the Ukrainian leader but with distinctly medieval garb, and is selling well online with the help of a man from Vancouver.
3D-printed figurines are being printed and sold in Canada to raise money for global Red Cross programs. The model was designed in Australia and inspired by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Submitted by Max Manley)
Max Manley is one of a handful of producers around the world printing the 3D figure in his home and collecting the proceeds from the sales for global Red Cross programs.
“In five hours I could probably produce about 15 Zelenskys on a single printer plate,” he said.
“When they receive a figure from me, they can paint it and make it their own.”
WATCH | Who is Volodymyr Zelensky?
Volodymyr Zelensky: From TV star to war hero
11 days ago
Duration 3:02
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a comedic actor who’s now leading his country in a war and gaining international support along the way. 3:02
Jackie Klobucar, an illustrator from British Columbia, decided to donate money she makes selling her artwork online to a charity called Together Rising, which is supporting BIPOC and LGBTQ communities in Ukraine, according to its website.
Canadian creator Jackie Klobucar is selling digital art to raise money for organizations assisting in Ukraine. (Jackie Klobucar)
Her desire to fundraise was partly inspired by her Slavic heritage, she said, and the days she spent at European community centres in Windsor, Ont., as a child.
“It was something very prominent in my childhood,” she said.
Make borscht, not war
In San Francisco, Canadian Anne-Marie Bonneau’s kitchen countertop is covered in bowls of chopped vegetables — onions, celery and, most importantly, beetroot, the main ingredient in a soup that is common in Russia, Ukraine and other parts of eastern Europe.
Originally from Belleville, Ont., Bonneau hosted a live online cooking class, teaching dozens of people in the U.S. and Canada how to make the dish. Participants had to donate money to one of the charities Bonneau had chosen, like Médecins Sans Frontières, to secure a spot in the class.
Anne-Marie Bonneau decided to host a cooking lesson online, where participants had to donate to charities to secure a spot. She instructed 40 others to make borscht, a sour soup common in Ukraine. (Submitted by Anne-Marie Bonneau)
More than 40 people signed on, raising more than $2,700 US for the humanitarian response in Ukraine and neighbouring countries.
“It’s fun to cook dinner with a group of people,” she said.
Bonneau said raising so much money for Ukrainians felt good and doing something also helped with her anxiety over the crisis.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
