Waddesdon Hall thanks locals for generous donations for Ukraine
The hall in Aylesbury are driving lorries full of supplies straight to Lviv
Waddesdon Hall in Aylesbury has been taking lots of donations for Ukraine since learning about the invasion of Russia.
The community hall is usually open for fitness classes, parties, wedding receptions and children's activities, but they are now using their space to help people in Ukraine.
They have stressed that they are not asking for food or clothes, but are asking for medical and essential supplies.
Agnieszka Alborzpour, the Waddesdon Hall Marketing Manager said: "I spoke to a lot of my friends and decided to organise a donation collection for Ukrainian refugees. Very quickly we discovered that we need to help people who stayed in the country.
"We contacted a hospital in Lviv where a close friend of mine is a doctor and we understood that our efforts must be concentrated on delivering medical and essential supplies.
"We are asking for medical supplies and basic essentials - we are not collecting clothes or food. We have friends in Lviv who are sending us distressing messages about the lack of any medical supplies. Because of this, we are emphasising that we are only collecting medical supplies and very basic essentials such as hand wash, to insure that we can effectively help them."
"We have been overwhelmed by the response from various communities - people come and donate to us from all over. They have set up local collection points and they are bringing donations to us with cars and vans full of them. A lot of local organisations, companies, churches and schools collect donations for us and bring them to Waddesdon."
There are concerns that if men aged 18 to 60 want to leave Ukraine, they might be turned away at the border in case they're needed to fight on the frontline.
Agnieszka added: "At this moment, only Ukrainian citizens can cross the boarder and the lorry drivers must be elderly, over sixty. If they are not, they would have to stay and fight. This is the current situation and our drivers are elderly men who single handily drive from the UK to Ukraine. As you can imagine, there is no certainty that they will return safely."
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