“I Love Our Family Time for Coffee”: A Story of the Family from Toretsk
“I don’t do much for myself; I mostly work for my children. But I enjoy going to the park and spending time with my family drinking coffee on weekends,” says Volodymyr, a 48-year-old resident of Toretsk.
Volodymyr fled the Donetsk region with his family in March 2024. Now they live in a modular town in Irpin (Kyiv region). Here, Volodymyr works as a commandant – he meets and resettles evacuated families and helps with maintenance and repairs.
His work allows him to stay close to his 12-year-old son, Zhenia, who needs constant care due to his disability. Volodymyr is a single parent – his wife passed away during childbirth, and since then, his mother has been helping him raise the boy.
Their eldest daughter, Ania, a medical student in Kropyvnytskyi, often visits them on weekends. These visits are filled with warmth and simple joys: walks in the park, shared conversations, and, of course, coffee together in their new home.
Volodymyr says he enjoys coffee most when it’s shared: “You enjoy a drink and communicate with people at the same time.” He often treats his neighbors in the modular town who come to visit.
Smiling, he adds: “I had a small, simple heated coffee maker at home. This one is just great – it does everything. Even with milk, even without – any kind of coffee.”
His family is one of those who received coffee machines and maintenance kits from Miele, a home appliance manufacturer, and flavored coffee from Coffeeton. Their story proves that sometimes coffee is not just a drink – it is a tradition, communication, care, and comfort, which are so vital for people displaced by the war.
For many, home today is found in small everyday rituals that bring back a sense of warmth and hope – like sharing a simple cup of coffee.
In March and May 2025, the East SOS Charity Foundation delivered 80 kilograms of coffee, 40 autonomous coffee machines, and 40 sets of special maintenance tablets provided by Miele and Coffeeton. This assistance reached 24 families of internally displaced persons from the Donetsk, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions, as well as residents of support spaces run by the NGO “Save Ukraine” in Kyiv, Hatne, and Irpin (Kyiv region) and Kamianka-Buzka (Lviv region).
The Foundation expresses its sincere gratitude to both companies for their partnership and compassion. Your contribution brings warmth, comfort, and small joys that help people rebuild their lives and find strength in difficult times.
In August 2025, East SOS also allocated over UAH 258,000 to support two shelters in Dnipro and Kropyvnytskyi and a rehabilitation center in Odesa.
