This weekend, the two-day Ukrainian Food & Culture Festival took place in Abbington, Pennsylvania, at St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church: "Autumn Feasts". More than 5,000 Ukrainians from all over Philadelphia gathered to celebrate Ukrainian culture and raise funds to support Ukraine.
The organizers of the event, St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church in Mykhailivka, with the support of United Help Ukraine and Revived Soldiers Ukraine (RSU), prepared a wonderful concert with local folk artists, delicious Ukrainian cuisine, a fair with products from local vendors, Ukrainian souvenirs, a raffle and entertainment for children.
A special guest of the event was the famous Ukrainian band Antytil as part of their Culture vs. War charity tour in the United States. The artists performed their favorite hits "TDME", "Seize the Day", "You to Believe" and "Fortress Bakhmut" in a unique acoustic atmosphere.
"Philadelphia, USA. The first open event within the Culture vs War project and the first impressive results! About 5000 people attended the event and a charity auction raised $20,000 for the needs of the DIU soldiers! The "Culture vs. War" project aims to remind all Ukrainians abroad and citizens of other democratic countries that our struggle continues. The enemy continues to commit crimes, destroy our cities and villages, and kill our people, but we will not give up and will continue to defend our freedom and independence. However, we need support and we need to increase this support at all levels", – Revived Soldiers Ukraine, the band Antytila.
Videos of the event can be seen link (Svetlana Madi) and link (Tadas Brusokas).
According Revived Soldiers Ukraine, an organization dedicated to helping Ukrainians, they screened a short film "Culture vs. War" at the festival about the musicians' service at the beginning of the full-scale invasion: liberation of the Kyiv region, evacuation of seriously wounded soldiers, and service as paramedics in Kharkiv.
After the film, the artists participated in a question and answer session with the audience, allowing the Ukrainians in Philadelphia to learn more about the events in Ukraine firsthand.
They spoke about the detention of prisoners of war in inhumane conditions and the enemy's disregard for all the rules of the Geneva Convention.
The group members called on representatives of the Ukrainian community to become more active in protesting in support of Ukraine, lobbying for arms and financial support for Ukraine. They also addressed the issue of personal economic growth of Ukrainians in America so that the Ukrainian community in the United States could become even more powerful.
"We organized a charity auction where we raffled off unique military trophies: a used grenade launcher ($9,000), a mini-bar of shell casings ($1,300), a Kraken unit flag ($2,400), and a flag signed by Valeriy Zaluzhny ($3,000). Each lot had a huge symbolic value", - RSU said.
The festival also featured speeches by seriously wounded soldiers Roman Zabava (415th Battalion, Zaporizhzhia), Ivan Meleta (45th Brigade, Lviv), Andriy Nasada (80th Brigade, Lviv), Maksym Lutsko (3rd Regiment of Special Forces), and Vadym Khuts (53rd Brigade, Kyiv). Київ).
All funds raised at the festival will be used to purchase an evacuation boat for the Defense Intelligence Service of Ukraine and drones.
Author: Inna Mikhno