Svetlana Burton, a seasoned Russian teacher at the Anchorage Waldorf School, invited the school community to help the “Free School ASTR” in Odessa, Ukraine. She made Piroshki and Borsch in her kitchen and sold it to the school families to raise funds to support teacher salaries and allow students to attend school remotely.

Svetlana's energy invigorated the community. Many orders were placed, and several students volunteered to help Mrs. Burton cook the local Ukrainian and Russian dishes. Other students wanted to connect through letter writing and eagerly waited to send and receive letters from pen pals at the Free School.

Mrs. Burton is only 3 weeks into her ‘cooking to make a difference’ project and has already sent nearly $4,000 to the Free School. The teachers, children and parents of the Free School shared in a letter to our school last week:

“We are not strangers. The children of our school and the children of the Waldorf School of Anchorage have been corresponding for three years now. We are true partner schools, school friends. And, that is what friends are for, to help each other, because timely help is much more valuable than many thousands of dollars promised by someone sometime later! You are now guardian angels!”

Photo Credit: Anchorage Waldorf School