More aid to help feed people with insufficient access to food in the war-torn Ukraine is on its way, thanks to a $300,000 donation by the Alaska Legislature, led by Sen. Gary Stevens, R- Kodiak.
Some 3,200 cases of canned Alaska pink salmon were to be loaded onto a container ship in Seattle on Aug. 8, headed to chefs with the World Central Kitchen in Ukraine, according to Bruce Schactler, food aid program and development director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
The fish will provide some 400,000 meals for Ukrainians, Schactler said.
World Central Kitchen was founded by celebrity chef Jose Andres in 2010 after a devastating earthquake in Haiti. Together with its partners, the kitchen has served well over a million meals to Ukrainians living in shelters, refugee camps and transportation centers since the war began earlier this year.
Sen. Stevens said Alaskans should be proud of their role in helping to feed people in desperate straits. While Alaskans can’t do much in terms of manpower, “we can provide food,” he said.
Headlines about the continuous attacks on Ukraine and thousands of people fleeing the country led Stevens to thinking about what people in Alaska could do to help them.
“So we put it in the budget and everyone agreed to it,” he said.