There’s an old joke, Jorgia Moore says, when it comes to Edmonton’s sizable Ukrainian population. “If you don’t have any Ukrainian friends, you don’t have any friends.” So, when the war broke out, the city sprang into action to welcome those who fled Ukraine. Moore was one of them.
She opened the Free Store for Ukrainian Newcomers two years ago, stocking it with donated clothing and household and personal care items. Helping to fill the gaps for Ukrainians who had fled with just suitcases, it offers the option to choose items suited to their needs and wants. “As soon as we opened, newcomers would come in and ask, ‘Why are these people doing this? They don’t even know us.’ We explained that everyone wants to help. And they said, ‘Well, I want to help, too,’ and they would return the next week to help sort donations.”
Soon, everyone noticed one word constantly on donors’ lips: “perogy.” “The volunteers said, ‘All these people are asking for perogies. Maybe we should just make them,’ ” Moore recalls. And since they already had the Free Store, why not sell perogies on-site? They got 18 orders right away.
Then reality hit — they needed a commercial kitchen. Moore reached out to Matthew Potts, Cook County Saloon’s chef. “I started the call with ‘Hey, here’s a super-strange question. Can we use your kitchen on Saturday morning?’ ” Potts said yes, local news got wind of it, and things went viral. “We did $30,000 in sales in 30 hours!” The group moved to the kitchen at a local church for a couple of months, and then local entrepreneur Scott Kelly, who owns Butcher & Packers Supplies, stepped up, offering to build them a kitchen for free.
Today, they can make 3,000 perogies a day, which are available at Don’ya’s storefront as well as at local restaurants, including Cook County Saloon. And the menu has expanded — there’s a variety of perogy fillings (cheddar is the top seller), plus borscht and holobsti (stuffed cabbage). Moore now has more than 18 people on staff at Don’ya and the Free Store — which has transitioned from its original material offerings to facillitating newcomer- settlement supports such as cooking classes, fitness programs and seminars on financial literacy. Each employee puts in 30 hours a week, which is the requirement for newcomers to apply for permanent residency in Canada. “Our long-term goal is that they can eventually have their own little Don’ya shop.”
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