A refugee from war-torn Ukraine has returned the kindness shown to her by the people of Annan.
Inna Dorofeieva fled Kiev in 2022 with her teenage son to escape the Russian missiles. She settled in Dumfries and began working as a cook at Kate’s Kitchen, the community café in Annan High Street.
She is immensely grateful to Kate’s Kitchen and the people of Annan for the way they welcomed her into the community.
She said: “The people here are like my family. I need to work to support my son, I like to work, and they gave me that chance. Will I ever go back to Ukraine? I don’t know. I don’t know when the war will stop.”
On Wednesday hundreds of people enjoyed free tomato soup, made to Inna’s recipe, to mark World Kindness Day.
The Cumberland Building Society was behind the initiative. A team based at its branch on High Street handed out over 300 cups of soup – in the hope recipients would pay it forward and pass on the kindness to others – while volunteers delivered a further 100 to delighted workers at nearby businesses, the police and town hall.
Chloe Sheppard, a payroll and accounts administrator, tasted the soup when a delivery arrived at accountant Saint & Co in High Street. She said: “We’ve never had someone deliver soup to us before. It should be World Kindness Day every day. Everybody needs a bit of help and we should all be kinder to each other.”
The Cumberland was highlighting its Kinder Kind of Kitchen initiative, run in partnership with FareShare Glasgow and the West of Scotland, which supports community projects to tackle food poverty.
In June this year, it produced The Kinder Cookbook, featuring recipes from the food groups it has funded. Inna’s tomato soup was among them.
She said: “Tomato soup is not a traditional soup in Ukraine, we eat borscht instead, but here people love it. Every time I make it, it’s a little bit different depending on what people tell me. I try to improve it.”
Members of the public calling at the Cumberland’s branch praised the soup and the campaign behind it.
Malcolm McEwen, of Annan, said: “It’s as good a tomato soup as I’ve had. The world could be a kinder place and the Cumberland are doing a great job supporting community food initiatives. Too many people are struggling.”
Elaine Hastie, also of Annan, similarly praised the society’s work on food poverty, adding: “I’ve used the Cumberland for years. It’s so easy to come in and access your money. A lot of banks have closed, which makes it harder.”
Volunteers wearing Kinder Kind of Kitchen T-shirts, aprons and hats handed out soup along with recipe cards and copies of The Kinder Cookbook.
Ryan McCubbin, the Cumberland’s Cluster Manager for Scotland, said: “Being able to give something back to the community means so much to us. It was exciting to see people’s reactions when they came into the branch. Our customers are really interested in what we’re doing.”
From June to October this year, the Kinder Kind of Kitchen initiative has supported five community food groups in South West Scotland, helping FareShare to serve the equivalent of 62,472 meals and diverting 26 tonnes of food – that would otherwise have gone to waste – to people in need.
The Cumberland donates 1.5 per cent of its profits to good causes. It provided £250,000 to start the Kinder Kind of Kitchen initiative in Cumbria and Lancashire and another £250,000 to continue the initiative and expand it into Scotland where it has branches in Annan, Dumfries, Gretna, Langholm and Lockerbie.
Find out more at and download the Kinder Cookbook at: https://www.cumberland.co.uk/kinderkitchens
World Kindness Day, celebrated on November 13 each year, was started by the World Kindness Movement in 1998 to highlight good deeds in the community.
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