King's Church Cockermouth hosts Ukrainian pop-up cafe

King's Church in Cockermouth hosted the pop-up café on Sunday, December 10 in order to raise vital funds for Ukrainian humanitarian support.

The team did an amazing job of making and serving authentic dishes. From a traditional Ukrainian Christmas dish, to pancakes, potato zrazy, vareniki to borsch and scrumptious cakes.

Vita Bushta and Anna Zhuzha (Image: Supplied)

The event was a fantastic opportunity for the people of Cockermouth to meet and know displaced families from Ukraine and to hear their stories, and it certainly proved popular, with more than £1300 raised thus far. 

Iona Giagnoni said: "The Ukrainian ladies at church wanted to do another pop-up at Christmas following our successful one in September. One of the ladies' partners does humanitarian work in Ukraine. The money gets funnelled through to his church, they take food, supplies, water and clothing to the areas that have been devastated.

"A lot of ladies feel that this is one way that they can contribute to the war effort. They also feel that we've lost some momentum in the UK press because very little is being said about Ukraine due to the conflict in Israel and Gaza. They want to keep it in people's minds that it is still going on."Behind the scenes of the pop-up cafe (Image: Supplied)Sunday's event proved to be a big success however, as locals enjoyed some delightful homemade Ukrainian food, and listened the stories of the women at the church. 

King's Church Cockermouth wanted to support the Ukrainian women who had been welcomed into the church since fleeing to the UK, where many were forced to take low-paying jobs despite being well-educated in their own country.

Iona added: "Lots of them wrote their own personal stories for people to read and find out why they are here. A lot of their partners are either fighting or have been injured. The guy's in the army have to provide all their own safety equipment but as a church, we cannot provide money for the military. So we decided to provide money for the humanitarian side of things."