A local restaurateur is making his fourth trip to Ukraine next week to raise awareness and money through food.
Brandon Chrostowski, founder of the EDWINS Leadership & Restaurant Institute, will spend about a week on a humanitarian cooking mission in the cities of Lviv and Stryi.
"No one can ignore the fact that it's been a little difficult there in Ukraine as of late," Chrostowski said. "So no better time than to go there, be of service, and raise your funds."
Chrostowski rallied private investors and community members over the last three weeks to raise $37,000 to host cooking lessons with orphaned children and help support an ongoing children’s hospital renovation.
"This is like unfinished business," Chrostowski said. "We raised about $20,000 last year to begin this children's hospitals renovation and they needed more money to close it out. So that was the goal to raise more money."
Humanitarian missions like this one can show the value food can bring to a war-torn country, Chrostowski said.
"It’s beyond just nourishment," he said. "It just connects this overall mission that, that food is powerful. And it's healing and it's education and it brings people closer together and it represents a culture."
Chrostowski's 10-year-old son Leo and 8-year-old daughter Lilly will be joining him on this trip for the first time and will assist him in preparing meals for the children.
The goal is to ensure his children realize how big of an impact they can make in small ways.
"It's a really important lesson for my children to learn because they have to know ... they can make a difference," he said. "They can control an outcome and no matter how small they may think the contribution is. It can manifest into something bigger."
Chrostowski will also be working with Ukrainian chef Evgeniy Sushko to host a sold-out, six-course dining experience in Lviv there to raise additional funds to support relief efforts.
It's too early to say where Chrostowski's next humanitarian trip will be, but he said it will happen when and where he feels he’s needed most.
