Sunflowers from my Kamloops garden.
A year ago, there was honey cake
Last August I wrote a story about a small yellow sign on Victoria Road in Summerland, and about the family behind it. The Sunflower Ukrainian Café became a ritual for Mama and me: borscht that tastes like a Ukrainian winter kitchen, varenyky made the way they are supposed to be made, and Andriy’s medivnyk, prepared fresh with recipes carried out of Ukraine in 2022.
I celebrated my birthday there. It was a small thing and it was not a small thing. For those of us who left one home and built another, a table where both languages are welcome is not a luxury. It is medicine.
This year, there is smoke
On the evening of Friday, August 7, a wildfire started in the Faulder area west of Summerland. It grew with a speed that BC Wildfire Service has described as unlike anything crews have seen before. Just after midnight, the entire District of Summerland, more than 12,000 people, was placed under evacuation order. Search and rescue teams and RCMP officers went door to door through the night. Dozens of people were lifted out of Faulder by helicopter. Highway 97 closed. On Saturday the Province declared a state of emergency, with close to 22,000 people across British Columbia forced from their homes.
As of Sunday, August 9, the Bald Range fire has burned more than 100 square kilometres and remains out of control. Homes have been lost. The full toll is still being confirmed, and there is a possible loss of life under investigation. Air quality in the Southern Interior, Kamloops included, is poor.
Numbers do not tell you what this is. What this is: a whole town sleeping somewhere else, not knowing.
I messaged Andriy
The family is safe. That was the first thing I needed to know, and it is the first thing I want to share.
The second thing is what they did next. Rather than wait out the emergency, the Sunflower Ukrainian Café offered hot meals to anyone in the community directly affected by the fire and evacuation, with delivery where it is safe and permitted, asking only that people send them a message with their location and how many need to eat. Their post ends with a line I keep rereading: stay safe, follow the evacuation orders, take care of one another. Summerland, we’re in this together.
Read that again with the timeline in mind. In 2022 this family left a country under bombardment. Summerland took them in, helped them find a space, and filled their café. In 2026, when Summerland had to run, the family that ran three years earlier turned on the ovens.
That is what neighbours do when they can. Not because it is heroic. Because someone is hungry and you know how to cook.
Thank you to everyone holding people up
To the BC Wildfire Service crews and pilots, the structure protection teams who stood between the flames and people’s homes, the Penticton and District Search and Rescue members and the mutual aid teams from Princeton, Oliver and Osoyoos, Grand Forks, Rossland, and the Central Okanagan who worked through the night, the RCMP, the power crews, the emergency operations staff who are updating a frightened public while evacuated from their own houses, and the Emergency Support Services volunteers at the reception centres: thank you.
And thank you to the quieter ones. The people making up beds. The people who took someone’s dog. The farmers who found pasture for evacuated horses. The businesses in Penticton, West Kelowna, and beyond who are feeding strangers. This is the part of an emergency that never makes the headline and always makes the difference.
If you want to help, the most useful things are usually the simplest: follow EmergencyInfoBC and your local emergency operations centre for accurate information, do not drive into evacuation zones, register with Emergency Support Services if you have been displaced, give cash rather than goods to organizations already on the ground, and check on the people you know who are staying somewhere unfamiliar tonight.
The sunflower is growing
There is good news from this year that deserves to be said out loud. In the spring, Julia, Andriy, and their family opened a second Sunflower location at 221 Main Street in Penticton, in a space that had been a pastry and chocolate shop before. The Summerland café is small and does breakfast and lunch. The Penticton location adds lunch and dinner. Julia has said she hopes it becomes a gathering place, not only for Ukrainians but for everyone, because so many Canadians carry Ukrainian roots and because everyone should be able to come in, sit down, and be part of their lives.
The family continues to raise and send money to people in need in Ukraine while building a business here. Two homes, one heart, and a great deal of hard work.
In September, we drive
When the fires are out and it is safe for residents to return, Mama and I will make the drive down the valley again, and I hope that is September.
One thing will change. Where before our trip meant Summerland, now it will mean Summerland and Penticton. Two Sunflower tables, and every other local business that will be quietly counting a lost summer season. Rebuilding does not happen during the emergency. It happens in the months after, when the rest of us decide whether to show up with our attention and our wallets.
So this is a promise and an invitation. Come back to the South Okanagan when it reopens. Buy the fruit. Book the room. Order the medivnyk. Tell them Sasha sent you.
To Summerland: your neighbours are cooking for you, and the rest of us are standing with you.
Love. Care. Share.
Sunflower Ukrainian Café 13229 Victoria Road North, Summerland, BC 221 Main Street, Penticton, BC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093188931639 Instagram: @sunfloweruacafe
Related: A Taste of Ukraine Blooms in the Okanagan: The Sunflower Ukrainian Café Story (August 5, 2025) https://krasun.ca/2025/08/05/a-taste-of-ukraine-blooms-in-the-okanagan-the-sunflower-ukrainian-cafe-story/
Sources
- CBC News. (2026, August 8). Entire community of Summerland, B.C., ordered to evacuate due to fast-moving wildfire. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/summerland-bc-wildfire-aug-7-9.7300528
- CBC News. (2026, August 9). What you need to know about B.C. wildfires on Aug. 9. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfire-sunday-august-9-9.7300881
- Castanet. (2026, August 8). Evacuation orders still in place in Summerland, Peachland areas as wildfire grows. https://www.castanet.net/news/Summerland/627443/
- Richardson, C. (2026, March 4). Summerland Ukrainian cafe adding new spot in Penticton, spreading culture and full bellies. Castanet. https://www.castanet.net/news/Penticton/601933/Summerland-Ukrainian-Cafe-adding-new-spot-in-Penticton-spreading-culture-and-full-bellies
- EmergencyInfoBC. District of Summerland evacuation information. https://www.emergencyinfobc.gov.bc.ca/event/district-of-summerland-evacuation-information/
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