About us
We are “Franky and Coen into the breach”.
Franky and Coen jump into the breach where necessary.
We, Coen and Franky, are two snack bar owners and have been friends for more than twenty-five years.
When the war in Ukraine just started, we felt we had to do something for the refugees who were crossing the border into Poland en masse. Franky: "With a small budget of our own money, we hitched up the trailer and drove to the Polish-Ukrainian border. There we handed out free fries and snacks for a week. The stories we heard there touched us deeply."
Already on the way back to the Netherlands we decided to continue. The media picked up our story, causing donations to flow in. This allowed us to continue our actions, first in Poland and then in Ukraine.
The first time in (west) Ukraine was exciting. We had never been to a war zone. The first air raid siren was intense. In recent years we have been to Ukraine dozens of times and distributed hundreds of thousands of portions of fries and snacks. First in western Ukraine and then further east. The last few trips we mainly went to the front in eastern Ukraine, where help and support are needed most.
Nowadays we not only hand out fries and snacks, but we also provide all kinds of emergency supplies such as cooking stoves and generators. We also provide financial support to war victims and accommodate refugees in our shelter in Dnipro.
We are regularly asked as speakers at conferences to talk about the war situation near the front. Dutch politicians also went with us to Ukraine . We were guests in both the Dutch and Ukrainian parliaments. We are known in Ukraine through several reports in newspapers and on TV. In October 2024 we will be judges in the popular program “ Masterchef Ukraine “.
We are persistent and will continue with our actions in Ukraine. We report on our activities on this site and through our social media. Of course we hope for your support.
You already support us by following us on social media and subscribing to our newsletter.
We were in the media a lot, which helped us receive financial support from ordinary people like you and me.
We often started in the Lviv region, where we visited refugee locations and orphanages to bake the most delicious fries and snacks. We also went to the Pre-Carpathians to cook for refugees, the disabled, the elderly and refugees.
Later we went to hard-hit towns like Irpin (where 70% of the houses were destroyed), Borodyanka (with many casualties), Hostomel (where the big battle for the airport took place) and Butcha (where mass graves were found). We were very active in the Kiev region.
In later trips we worked closer and closer to the front. We were in the Kharkiv region several times, including in Smiïv , Balaklija and Izium .
In addition, we have contributed to the financing of an operating room in a hospital in Kiev , we send relief supplies and generators to Ukraine and we support orphanages and other projects.
Our later travels were mainly to the east, such as the Donbas . We made fries in Sviatogirsk , Sloviansk , Kramatorsk and Lyman , among others. We also went to Kherson and Zaporizhia and now have our own shelter for refugees in a former hotel in Dnipro .
Future:
We would like to continue to help and support, but how often and how long we can work in Ukraine partly depends on your donation.
The goal of the “Franky and Coen into the Breach” foundation is to provide assistance to refugees and those in need in and from war zones worldwide, in the broadest sense of the word.
We would like to bring smiles to the people of Ukraine again!