VANCOUVER, Wash. — Vancouver coffee shop Gold Cup Coffeehouse is holding a two-day fundraiser for Ukrainian refugees displaced by the Russian invasion. Many of the shop's employees and customers are Ukrainian immigrants.
Gold Cup plans to send all of the donations and 100% of its profits over the two-day fundraiser to the Vancouver-based religious nonprofit Kingdom Movement, which is working to provide aid to refugees.
The shop has raised about $15,000 so far, according to co-owner Oksana Kozlov, primarily from direct donations.
In a video posted to Instagram on Wednesday, Kozlov said she hopes the fundraiser can help make a difference for the estimated one million refugees who have fled west in the first week of the invasion.
"It's hard to think that a little bit over a week ago people were just living their normal lives; going to a coffee shop, going to a friend's house, going to work, buying groceries, cooking food, making plans for the next day and the future," she said.
Kozlov was born in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Her immediate family immigrated to the United States when she was six years old, but she still has extended family in Ukraine.
"I'm 50% Ukrainian, 50% Russian — so this war is difficult, but our hope is really just to see humanity in all of this," she said.
Two of the shop's baristas plan to soon head to Poland, Kozlov said, joining a team of Kingdom Movement volunteers to provide direct assistance to refugees.
Roman Trachuk with Kingdom Movement was born and raised in Ukraine and most of his family still lives there, and he said his group couldn't stand by while seeing people in Ukraine suffering.
"I'm seeing people in fear, panicking — innocent people. This caught them by surprise," he said. "Ukraine's been partially a war zone for six years now, but this came as a shock."