An artisan bakery and cafe in Bristol is running a special bake sale this weekend and donating all the profits to provide aid to those impacted by the earthquake in Turkey, via the non-profit organisation AHBAP. Bake Away on Chandos Road will be selling Turkish specialities alongside its usual fare of pastries, loaves and cakes from 9am to 4pm this Saturday (February 19).
It's been more than a week since a deadly earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, flattening cities, injuring tens of thousands and killing over 40,000 people. Bake Away owner Ece Seveal, who is originally from Istanbul, told Bristol Live that after it struck, her first instinct was to try to make her way there.
She said: "In the first couple of days, I didn't know how I could help. I just wanted to physically be there because I was like in shock, it was so sad. So I was literally checking the tickets to go to Turkey, to this area, to help people because I was feeling so useless here.
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"But then I was like, ok, to go there is not that clever. Maybe I can use my network here as a business. So that's why I thought that I could do this bake sale."
Ece's parents still live in Istanbul, and even though it's over 1,000km away, she said almost everyone they know has been affected. She said: "This is hard to say, but I'm luckily from Istanbul, so almost all of my friends and my family, they live in Istanbul, and they're ok, but I know so many people, even some of my close friends, who have lost their relatives, or they're still waiting to be saved [after] eight days.
"So many people are helping, but the horrible thing is millions of people are affected by this disaster because it's a huge area. So these people are going to need this help for months, even maybe years, because ten cities literally collapsed. Schools, hospitals, people's houses, it's going to take so long to rebuild the cities and give these people's life back."
This week Ece is enlisting help from her friends to prepare extra items for Saturday's bake sale to tempt customers while raising money to help those in the disaster zone. As well as flaky, buttery pain au chocolate and croissants and crusty loaves, there will be Turkish specialities including savoury cheese breakfast rolls, pogaca, spinach and cheese borek and stuffed vine leaves.
Ece already ran an impromptu donation drive last week after learning from the Turkish Community Association on Gloucester Road that they were sending a delivery. She said: "I called them, and they said we need like physical help to pack because everything needs to be separated and put into labelled boxes. The people working in that area they're working already so much; we need to make it easier for them.
"Also, they said they couldn't find any tents or sleeping bags. So I just had literally half a day to collect something, and I just put out an [Instagram] story. But even just in that short time, so many people came here. I collected maybe 15 tents and maybe 15-20 sleeping bags, baby wipes, food and financial donations as well from businesses in the area, and then I went there and spent two days to help boxing stuff."
Ece is hoping for a similarly positive response this weekend, with all profits going to the non-profit organisation AHBAP, which she said she chose for its transparency. Anyone who wishes to donate but can't make it on Saturday can do so here.
Originally trained in industrial product designing, cooking has always been Ece's passion, and when she moved to the UK, she decided to open a food business, initially on Cheltenham Road. Despite opening during a difficult January 2020, she says she feels fortunate to have found a spot on one of the most popular foodie roads in Bristol after her friend, who runs a cooking school further down, mentioned a unit was empty.
She said: "It was not by research, it was by luck, but I'm grateful that I found this location. [On Chandos Road] You can have your breakfast, lunch, dinner and cocktail."
Bake Away is located at 16 Chandos Rd, Redland, Bristol BS6 6PE, and the Bake Sale with proceeds going to the Turkish earthquake appeal will be on this Saturday (February 18) from 9am to 4pm
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