STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

George Golleher couldn’t sit by as he watched images of civilians being bombed in Ukraine flicker across his TV screen.

So, he and his daughter Carly Tempest put their heads together and came up with a campaign on behalf of their Bigwood Bread Bakery & Café to raise $100,000 for medical relief in Ukraine. Bigwood Bread will match up to $50,000 of the $100,000, said Golleher.

“And if it hits $100,000, which it will, we’ll make another pledge,” he added.

Golleher and Tempest selected three four-star nonprofit global organizations and asked their customers via email to donate to one of the three. They are:

• Doctors without Borders-Ukraine, a global non-profit that provides medical and emergency services at the Polish border. The organization is working to get essential staff and resources into Ukraine.
• GlobalGiving-Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund—This global non-profit is providing shelter, food, clean water, psychosocial support and economic assistance to communities in Ukraine and surrounding regions where Ukrainian refugees have fled.
• International Committee of the Red Cross-Ukraine—This global non-profit is focused on saving the lives of victims of the conflict and improving the living conditions of those whose homes have been damaged by heavy fighting.

Tempest sent out emails announcing the fundraising campaign to 3,000 Bigwood Bread customers all over the country on Thursday. By the end of the day, Bigwood Bread had $46,000 marked for the effort. By mid-morning Friday another $15,000 was on its way to relief efforts, bringing the fundraising total at that time to $61,000.

The owner of a business next door responded within five minutes of the email blast with a check for $500, said Tempest. Other donations have ranged from $10 to $5,000.

“We’re a pretty popular place and when people come in and see others donating it has an impact,” said Tempest.

As the mother of three children, Tempest has been unable to bring herself to watch or read coverage of the Russian invasion, leaving it to her father to tell her what’s going on.

But she loves being part of the solution. And she says others feel the same way.

“A lot of people say they don’t want to think about it, but, if they can contribute or help in some way, they want to be part of the effort,” she said.

Ukraine is considered the bread basket of Europe and the Middle East, with even people in some Middle Eastern countries fretting about where they will now get the wheat for their flatbreads.

Bigwood Bread sources its wheat from Pacific Northwest growers for the bread it ships as far away as North and South Dakota.  But the business has had employees from Ukraine over the years, and one of its customers even sent a batch of Bigwood Bread cookies to a friend in Poland who was recovering from surgery.

Golleher said the entire Bigwood Bakery and Café staff, which totals about 50 this time of the year, has gotten behind the effort.

“Over the years we’ve supported such causes as Mountain Humane, the Thompson-Killebrew Memorial Golf Tournament for cancer research, Camp Rainbow Gold,” said Golleher. “If this were a tragedy unfolding in Alabama it would be easy to know what to do. In Ukraine it’s not so easy. But we found three of the top charities, and it’s rewarding for the whole staff to see people coming in and getting behind the cause.”

To help: Make out a tax-deductible donation to one of the 501©(3) nonprofit charitable organizations Bigwood Bread has picked out. Drop it off at the café at 271 Northwood Way in Ketchum’s light industrial district. Bigwood Bread will immediately match it and send off the combined donation to that charity.

Donations can also be made electronically. Just send a copy of the receipt to office@bigwoodbread.com so it can be matched.