Ten year-old Maia Bombrys is flexing her entrepreneurial skills with fundraising efforts for Ukrainian aid charity, Sunflower Scotland, and has already broken her initial target of raising £1,000.
On Sunday, Maia, along with her friend Katarina Steele, raised £549.20 at the Coffee Morning held at Starbucks Fountainbridge, smashing through her £1,000 goal. This is a charity close to her heart as her mother, Anastasia, is Belarusian/Ukrainian.
First Maia took a stall at Tesco in Musselburgh where she sold T-shirts, jewellery and home made cakes, making £767.06 for the charity. Since then she has replenished her stock with new items supplied by Hiroko Macfadyen, a Japanese jewellery maker who lives in Musselburgh making her own jewellery range by hand.
Some of the new stock came from the US where Maia’s paternal grandparents live. While they were visiting Florida they related the story of their granddaughter’s fund-raising efforts to a Vietnamese shop owner and she gave them some jewellery from her store for the schoolgirl to sell for charity.
When this stock is at an end Maia might make her own jewellery to sell, but meantime she has many T-shirts available.
In total the Sunflower Scotland charity raised £1585.87 at their event on Sunday and already have plans for their next event. Ian Anderson who is the General Manager of Fountainpark Entertainment Centre offered the charity the use of the space at Starbucks where they sold cakes, tablet, jewellery including the fundraising flash “Hame” pins and Sunflower T-shirts.
Mr Anderson and his wife are privately sponsoring the full cost of a lorry going to Ukraine, and he persuaded another occupier of a unit at Fountainpark, Funstation, to donate towards the cost of a second.
Fountainpark is now an official collection point for donations from the public. The place to take any donations of non-perishable items to be sent to Ukraine is on the lower level outside the Management Office next to Nuffield Health Club at 130 Dundee St EH11 1AF. Monday – Friday, 10am – 3pm. For assistance contact, 0131 228 9784.
A spokesperson for Sunflower Scotland said: “We are so grateful to Ian for his tremendous help. And to have Fountainpark as a collection point is just amazing. We are already planning our next event which will be a Scotland for Ukraine Dinner and Auction. This will be held at the City Chambers and anyone who wants to come along should keep an eye on our Facebook Page for early bird tickets.”
You can follow Sunflower Scotland on Facebook here and you may donate to their humanitarian aid efforts here.
Maia is fundraising for the grass roots charity which began here in Edinburgh as a result of her own family background. Her mother, Anastasia Karpushko-Bombrys, explained that she is Belarusian/Ukrainian and her parents have lived here in Scotland since 1991. Now, they have all begun to recognise some of the places shown as bomb sites on TV news reports. Anastasia said: “I left the country knowing I would not go back, but now my memories are being lost as we see places in towns close to where we lived or travelled, destroyed.”
Hame Fundraising Flash brooches
These beautiful brooches have been made by Dunbar-based LoullyMakes Handmade in Scotland as a small token of solidarity – a meaningful, wearable emblem of support. These are now available to buy and will also support Sunflower Scotland get vital supplies through.
Handmade using Lochcarron of Scotland’s newly designed “Hame” tartan, in combination with ribbons of Sky Blue and Grain Yellow, the brooch is embellished with a golden Sunflower Charm, and the colours and national flower of Ukraine on a gold coloured brass kiltpin base.
100% of ALL income generated by the sale of these Flash Pin Brooches will be donated directly to Sunflower Scotland
Buy the brooches here and at Gordon Nicolson Kiltmakers here.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
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