About us
We are “Franky and Coen into the breach”.
Franky and Coen step into the breach where necessary.
Coen is a snack bar owner with a snack bar "De frietketel" (formerly Het Carmelietje) in Waspik and Franky is a snack bar owner with a snack bar "Franky's Fish and Chips" in Eindhoven. In addition, Franky also works with a snack truck on locations. Franky and Coen have been friends for more than twenty-five years.
When the war in Ukraine started, Franky felt he should do something for the Ukrainian refugees.
When Franky told Coen this, Coen immediately said: I'm in. With a small budget of €4000 of their own money, they hitched up the trailer and drove to the Polish-Ukrainian border. There they handed out free chips and snacks. Of course, the budget was far too small, but because in the meantime the media had picked up the story, donation money came in, enabling them to hand out about 12,000 portions of chips and 10,000 snacks in that short period of time.
In the past 2 years, we have been to Ukraine 14 times and distributed more than 200,000 portions of chips and 200,000 snacks. We started the first trips in Poland. Then we went to western Ukraine and again a little later to eastern Ukraine. The last trips we went mainly to the front in eastern Ukraine because help and support is needed most in the front area.
Nowadays, Franky and Coen not only distribute chips and snacks but also give all kinds of relief goods such as cooking sets, generators and also assist war victims financially.
Franky and Coen were in the media a lot which gave them financial support from people like you and me. Franky and Coen took many trips first to the Polish/Ukrainian border and then in Ukraine.
They were among others in the Lviv region where they went to refugee sites and orphanages to bake the most delicious fries and snacks, but they also went to the pre-Carpathians to bake for refugees, the disabled, the elderly and refugees. They also went to the hard-hit towns of Irpin (where 70% of the houses were destroyed during rocket attacks and shelling), Borodyanka (where many people were killed), Hostomel (where the big battle of the airport took place) and Boetsha where hundreds of people were killed and mass graves were found. They were much active in the Kiev region.
In the later trips, Franky and Coen started working closer and closer to the front. Thus they were several times in the Kharkiv region where they worked in Smiïv, Balakija and Izum, among other places.
The last trips were largely to the Donbas. Here they baked fries in Sviatogirsk, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, and Lyman (10km from Bakhmut), among others. And many more small villages.
A terrible war has been going on in Ukraine since Russia invaded with brute force on Feb. 24. Since then, Ukraine has been fighting for freedom. Ukraine's freedom but also for our freedom! Coen and Franky are 100% behind Ukraine and are doing their utmost to help victims of this war.
On social media and this website we give continuous updates of our actions with photos and videos. So if you make a donation you can also follow what is being done with it.
We also support the Symvol Viry foundation.
This is a small Ukrainian foundation that does unique work. They make sure (at the risk of their own lives) that medicines from Kiev get to people in the most dangerous east. In these areas you cannot just go to a pharmacy to buy medicine. Therefore, there are many citizens who need the medicine very badly. Symvol Viry ensures that these people can still get medicine.
Hospital operating room and other support
We have also co-financed an operating room in a hospital in Kiyiv. We also send generators to Ukraine and support orphanages and different kind of projects.
Future:
We would like to continue frying and supporting but how often and how long we can work in Ukraine depends largely on your donation.
The purpose of the "Franky and Coen into the Breach" foundation is to provide assistance to refugees and dependents in and from war zones worldwide, all in the broadest sense.
We would like to bring a smile back to the people in Ukraine!