A Ukrainian refugee little girl decorates her cookies in her favorite color, blue.

Dade Heritage Trust: Baking In Historic Places

Katerina Garcia, Co-Editor In Chief and Social Media Editor

Ukrainian refugee kids decided to decorate their cookies in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. (Katerina Garcia)

What is Dade Heritage Trust? Dade Heritage Trust is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1972. Their mission is to preserve Miami-Dade County’s architectural, environmental, and cultural heritage through preservation, education, and advocacy efforts.

Christine Rupp, who is the executive director at Dade Heritage Trust was contacted by Ekaterina Elagina from Barry University about a program that helps kids who are here from Ukraine learn about Miami-Dade, the community that they are now calling home.

“We do something called Baking In Historic Places on a quarterly basis and we had a special workshop here in Vizcaya in December for gingerbread, but it was sold out so we decided to do a special event just for the kids today,” said Executive Director, Christine Rupp.

Date Heritage Trust partnered with Barry University and Edible Magazine to help make this event happen.

I was very fascinated with some of the events that Dade Heritage Trust had in December, but unfortunately we were not able to get to do them so I was so grateful and excited to learn that Dade Heritage Trust decided to organize a special workshop for these children. Said, Ekaterina Elagina

Sophomore Gianna Ferrara recently joined the Dade Heritage Trust to bake cookies alongside Ukrainian refugee kids.

“On February 4th, Dade Heritage Trust put together an event for Ukrainian kids who have recently called Miami their home. Barry University partnered with Dade Heritage Trust to make this event possible,” said Gianna.

Ukrainian refugee girls decorate their cookies together as a shared experience. (Katerina Garcia)

Ekaterina is always looking for some exciting, educational, beautiful events or experiences in Miami to show these kids more about their new home. She wants to show the children some unique place of Miami-Dade so that they fall in love with their home and hopefully get a better and easier process of education of culture.

“I am a student at Barry University and while I was there I had an idea to make a summer program for Ukrainian children just because they were going through all these transitions and they were relocating and many had to leave their families, friends, schools, and their homes. So I had that idea and I was able to get the approval from Barry University,” said Ekaterina Elagina.