SALEM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — With the Russian invasion displacing millions of Ukrainians, one North Shore eatery decided to shape and bake cookies to raise money for the children caught up in the warzone.
Periwinkles Food Shoppe in Salem has begun to sell heart-shaped cookies to raise money for the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to send to Ukraine, where owner Antonia Steriti said 97 percent of the funds would go towards.
"We go home to those warm houses and our comfy beds every night, where these people have nothing," Steriti told WBZ's Brooke McCarthy.
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Steriti said that her Ukrainian flag-colored cookies sold quickly on their first day on the menu, with 200 cookies gone within three hours. After realizing there was a high demand, Steriti said she committed herself to cooking 400 of the blue and yellow frosted cookies a day until the public's interest in them dies down. But there's no sign of that happening yet, Steriti said.
For Periwinkles Food Shoppe, the charity was a no-brainer.
"How can you not help them? They're fighting and they're not giving up- if that's not a lesson for all of us," Steriti said. "I decided to bake cookies to celebrate the courage of 44 million Ukrainian heroes, and try to use my God-given talent to raise some money to be given to the United Nations fund to help children."
WBZ's Brooke McCarthy (@BrookeWBZ) reports.
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