update: September 20, 2023
In two days we will serve our 80,000s meal in Ukraine! It has been an incredible adventure. Thank you so much to each of them more than 200 people who dedicated time or money to making this happen. We are so pleased to be able to alleviate some of the burden of instant poverty that millions of families are facing in Ukraine at this moment. We will continue to send out newsletters regularly with updates and stories and information and thank you’s, so be sure to send us your email so that you will be included. Beyond that, follow along on the Lucid Lorax YouTube channel and the Altruist Relief Kitchen YouTube channel as we build a kitchen and clinic in Tapachula, Mexico, and as we build another high volume kitchen at the epicenter of the earthquake in Turkiye.
Update: july 27th, 2023-
Today the ARK-Lviv crew served their 50,000th meal after 20 weeks of continuous operation! ARK-Lviv has been delivering hot meals to refugees in shelters and community-centers all around Lviv and to the refugees entering and exiting the city at the train station. Despite the difficulty of regular business closures during air raid alerts, and the danger of occasional missile strikes, the crew of ARK-Lviv has kept the kitchen open, operating, and cooking the most incredible food.
Update: February 23rd, 2023-
The ARK-Ukraine team will ramp up food production tomorrow in Lviv, Ukraine for the anniversary of the beginning of the war.
We have secured a lease for a large space in a local park in Lviv for the next ARK location. This will complement the current Catholic Church location and more than double our capacity in the country, as there is enough space to set up many additional tents.
The skilled ARK-Ukraine team who has been building and operating the kitchen in Lviv, is prepared to set up additional ARKs in Odessa and Kharkiv when we secure additional funding. Because ARKs are manufactured and run by locals and refugees, the local economy benefits in many ways
2022 Ukraine details can be found in our December newsletter
Update: September 2nd 2022–
We are returning to Ukraine for the third time on Equinox, this time to set up the first kitchen in Lviv. After a long summer of translation and blueprints and communications with an 11 hour time zone difference, all the necessary elements of the manufacturing are complete, and the kitchens can be built and distributed regularly into the winter.
Altruist Relief Kitchen has been in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. We’ve been preparing to set up the off-grid wood-fired industrial kitchens that can provide humanitarian aid during a gas, propane and electricity shortage, at the onset of a long Ukrainian winter.
Rather than send one kitchen from the USA, we established our ability to manufacture ARK’s in Ukraine. Now almost all of the money spent on our project goes to the Ukrainians who build and administer ARK in Ukraine, and we can provide an increasing number of hot meals and fresh water.
Because these radically efficient wood-fired kitchens do not need gas, propane, or electricity, they will be able to function uninterrupted through the winter war. Because ARK is radically financially transparent, you will be able to follow where all our money comes from, and how all of it is spent.