Some believe that a picture is worth 10,000 words, but I’m hoping this particular photo is worth some money. That’s my bike’s odometer reading on Friday afternoon, after I successfully “biked my age” for the 12th year in a row.

If you think this particular photo is worth $810, or $81, or even $8,100, please donate to World Central Kitchen, Chef José Andrés remarkable organization that is feeding thousands and thousands of children and their families in the war-torn Ukraine, which is still being hammered by the brutal invading army from neighboring Russia.

Here’s how World Central Kitchen started, in Chef Andrés’ own words: 

“It all began in 2010 after a huge earthquake devastated Haiti. Cooking alongside displaced Haitians in a camp, I found myself getting schooled in how to cook black beans the way they wanted: mashed and sieved into a creamy sauce.

You see, food relief is not just a meal that keeps hunger away. It’s a plate of hope. It tells you in your darkest hour that someone, somewhere, cares about you.

This is the real meaning of comfort food. It’s why we make the effort to cook in a crisis.

We don’t just deliver raw ingredients and expect people to fend for themselves. And we don’t just dump free food into a disaster zone: we source and hire locally wherever we can, to jump-start economic recovery through food.

After a disaster, food is the fastest way to rebuild our sense of community. We can put people back to work preparing it, and we can put lives back together by fighting hunger.

Cooking and eating together is what makes us human.

Since those early days our journey has taken World Central Kitchen all over the world. We fed an island after Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico. We fed tens of millions struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic. We put boots on the ground when a blast devastated Beirut, bushfires ripped through Australia, and a volcano transformed a Spanish island.

We were under a bridge with thousands of asylum seekers in Texas, in a demolished Kentucky town after brutal tornadoes, on the Louisiana coast when yet another enormous hurricane made landfall.

We have traveled a long way together, with support from people just like you….

At times like these, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of the challenges we face, and the speed of each new crisis.

But many complex problems have simple solutions. Sometimes you just need to decide to do something. Sometimes you just have to show up with a sandwich or some warm rice and beans.

You’d be amazed at the power of a plate of food. It can change the world, and so can you.”

Again, here’s how you can help change the world.