365 Days Without Missing One
A Kharkiv charity cooked hot meals every single day of 2025, reached 15 villages, launched new programmes for the elderly and children, and buried two of its volunteers in state honours. This is what a year at war looks like from the inside.
Reported by the Chervona Kalyna Kharkiv Foundation | Adapted for international readers
KHARKIV, Ukraine — 2025 Annual Report | January – December 2025 | chervona-kalyna.org
There is a church in central Kharkiv, about four miles from the front line, where a charity has been serving hot meals every Tuesday for three years. The hall smells of soup and fresh bread. The people sitting at the tables are from Dvorichanska, Kupyanska, Sviatohirsk — towns that no longer exist the way they did. Some have been coming since 2022. Some arrived last month.
The organisation that runs the kitchen is called Chervona Kalyna Kharkiv — Red Viburnum Kharkiv. In 2025, it served more than 25,500 hot meals, distributed over 12,500 food and hygiene packages, held more than 35 events for displaced children, and drove out to at least 15 villages across the Kharkiv region to deliver aid and collect produce for the kitchen. It did all of this while Kharkiv continued to be shelled.
This is the organisation’s first full-year report for international readers. It covers all four quarters of 2025 and draws on nearly 200 posts from the foundation’s Facebook page — the closest thing to a daily diary that exists. Quarterly reports for Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 are available on the foundation’s website for readers who want more detail.
“The Kitchen of Kindness worked every day. Not most days — every day.”
THE YEAR IN NUMBERS
What 365 Days of Work Looks Like
The numbers are large enough to feel abstract. They shouldn’t.
25,500 hot meals means someone ate lunch today because a volunteer showed up at five in the morning to start cooking. 12,500 food packages means a family that fled with one bag now has groceries for the week. 35 children’s events means a displaced child spent an afternoon making something out of clay or painting autumn leaves instead of sitting in a shelter.
Behind the annual totals are four distinct quarters, each with its own character.
- Hot meals served in 2025 — more than 25,500
- Food and hygiene packages distributed to IDPs — more than 12,500
- Children’s events (art therapy, masterclasses, celebrations) — more than 35
- Free legal consultations for IDPs — 4 sessions, 160+ cases
- Villages reached through field outreach — at least 15
- IDPs involved in community work programmes — more than 420 person-months
- New volunteer programmes launched — 2 (daily meals for elderly IDPs in shelters; fresh bread from Good People bakery)
- State and regional honours awarded — 3
- Permanent partner organisations — 10+
Q1 — JANUARY THROUGH MARCH
Winter: The Kitchen That Would Not Stop
The first quarter of 2025 was a test of endurance. Kharkiv winters are cold and the front line was close. Power cuts were regular. The foundation’s kitchen ran anyway.
In April — at the border of the first and second quarter — the region’s civil administration presented the foundation’s director, Liudmyla Katkova, with the Medal “Volunteer of Ukraine.” Other members of the team received the “Honour and Glory” cross. The foundation published the announcement without ceremony. The next post was about food packages.
The quarter also marked the beginning of a formal partnership with the Kharkiv Employment Centre — an arrangement that would allow the foundation to employ displaced people in community work throughout the year: unloading cargo, packing packages, helping in the kitchen. Over the course of 2025, more than 420 person-months of paid community work went to people who had fled their homes.
Q1 full report: chervona-kalyna.org/en/q1-2025-report/
Q2 — APRIL THROUGH JUNE
Spring: New Partners, a Circus, and Aid After Shelling
The second quarter was the foundation’s busiest for partnerships. Samaritan’s Purse joined for IDP distributions in the Dvorichanska community. Caritas Kharkiv brought volunteer lawyers for a free legal consultation session — sixty families came with questions about documents, social payments, protection. The hypermarket chain RUŠ and the cosmetics network EVA sent hygiene kits for soldiers.
For children, the quarter brought a circus. In May, the foundation organised a holiday with a circus performance and soap bubbles for displaced children — the kind of afternoon that is harder to arrange in a war zone than it sounds. More than two tonnes of food arrived from rural communities for the kitchen.
In June, when shelling hit residential areas of Kharkiv, the foundation was on the street within hours — hot tea, baked goods, and support for the communal workers clearing debris. The post about it was short. The foundation does not dramatise. It showed up.
Q2 numbers: 6,500+ hot meals, 3,200+ food packages, 9 children’s events, 120+ IDPs in community work, 1 legal consultation session (60+ cases).
Q2 full report: chervona-kalyna.org/en/q2-2025-report/
Q3 — JULY THROUGH SEPTEMBER
Summer: A New Programme, Pottery, and Camouflage Nets
The third quarter was the busiest of the year by volume — more than 7,000 hot meals, the highest quarterly figure. It was also the quarter in which the foundation launched what may be its most quietly important programme of 2025.
On September 5, the foundation announced it would begin providing daily hot meals for elderly IDPs living alone in shelters. These are people in their seventies and eighties who fled shelling and have no family nearby. They cannot cook for themselves. Some, the foundation’s posts suggest, had not had a warm meal made by someone who cares in weeks.
The quarter also brought a pottery masterclass for displaced children — every child made a clay piece and took it home. Volunteers drove to at least eight villages, returning with vegetables, preserves, and eggs from local gardens for the kitchen. In August, the same volunteers sat down in the foundation’s main room to weave camouflage nets for soldiers on the front line.
“This is not just a bowl of soup. It is the reminder that someone remembers them.”
Q3 numbers: 7,000+ hot meals, 3,500+ packages, 12+ children’s events, 8+ villages reached, 1 new programme (meals for elderly IDPs in shelters).
Q3 full report: chervona-kalyna.org/en/q3-2025-report/
Q4 — OCTOBER THROUGH DECEMBER
Autumn and Winter: A Medal, a Bakery, and St. Nicholas
December 4 was Volunteer Day in Ukraine. On that morning, Liudmyla Katkova received a state medal “For Contribution to the Defense of Kharkiv District.” On December 26, she received a second state honour. The foundation published both announcements in the same tone it uses for everything else: gratitude, then back to work.
Also in December, a local bakery called Good People began delivering fresh bread to displaced families daily. The foundation’s post about it used the word “zatishku” — cosiness, warmth, the feeling of home — to describe what fresh bread means to someone who no longer has a home kitchen. It was the most-shared post of the quarter.
The quarter also brought November’s anti-bullying session for displaced children, led by a psychologist — how to recognise it, how to protect yourself, how to support a friend. In October, volunteers visited children with Down syndrome alongside Rotary, bringing gifts and time. In early December, St. Nicholas arrived at the foundation with sweets and a decorated tree. On December 31, the foundation’s last post of the year wished its followers peace, health, and faith in good.
Q4 numbers: 6,500+ hot meals, 3,000+ packages, 8+ children’s events, 1 psychological support session (anti-bullying), 2 state honours, 1 new partner (Good People).
Q4 full report: chervona-kalyna.org/en/q4-2025-report/
A NOTE ON THE VILLAGES
The Part That Doesn’t Make the Headlines
Throughout 2025, the foundation made regular field trips to villages across the Kharkiv region — Baranove, Rohivka, Khvorostove, Dublyanka, Sontsedaivka, Oleksiivka, Vodyane, Bidylo, Chervonyi Prapor, and others. The pattern was always the same: the foundation brought food packages, hygiene goods, and essentials. The villages gave back vegetables, preserves, eggs, and milk from their own gardens for the kitchen.
It is worth pausing on what this exchange represents. These are villages that are themselves hosting displaced people, often at significant strain. Their residents — named individually in nearly every foundation post, because the foundation names people — chose to donate their garden surplus to a kitchen feeding hundreds of strangers in the city. The foundation brought St. Nicholas to their children in December. Their children made gift packages for soldiers and asked the volunteers to deliver them.
None of this appears in standard humanitarian aid statistics. It is the texture of how communities hold together under pressure.
Who Made This Possible
None of 2025’s work happened alone. The foundation’s permanent partners across all four quarters:
- CAMZ (Committee for Medical Aid in Zakarpattia) — medicines, warm clothing, hygiene goods, children’s probiotics, tableware for lunches
- Food Bank Ukraine — dairy products, treats for children, support for children’s events
- Nova Poshta Humanitarian — free logistics and delivery throughout the year
- Kharkiv Employment Centre — coordination of community work for IDPs
- Caritas Kharkiv — volunteer lawyers for IDP legal consultations
- St Peter and Paul Church, Kharkiv — venue for weekly charity lunches
Quarterly partners included Samaritan’s Purse, Kyiv Cardboard and Paper Mill, Rotary, RUŠ/EVA hypermarket chains, and, from December 2025, Good People bakery. Village communities across the Kharkiv region contributed produce throughout the year.
LOOKING FORWARD
What Stays When the Year Ends
At the end of 2025, the foundation had been operating for three and a half years without stopping. It had added programmes, found new partners, reached more villages, and received state recognition. Its director had been decorated twice in the same month. Its kitchen had not missed a day.
What is harder to count is what the organisation has become for the people who use it. The displaced grandmother in the shelter who gets a warm meal and someone to talk to. The child from Kupyanska who has been coming to the foundation’s events long enough to know the volunteers by name. The farmer in Baranove who loads his car with beetroot every October because he knows where it will go.
That is what a year of this work looks like. 365 days. Not one missed.
Together — to Victory. Together — we are stronger.
SUPPORT THE FOUNDATION
If this report moved you, consider making a donation. Every contribution — wherever you are in the world — helps keep the kitchen running, fund field trips, and give displaced children an afternoon that feels like childhood.
Donate: chervona-kalyna.org/en/donate/
Become a volunteer: chervona-kalyna.org/en/become-a-volunteer/
Become a partner: chervona-kalyna.org/en/staty-partnerom/
Website: chervona-kalyna.org/en/
Facebook: facebook.com/ChervonaKalynaKharkiv
