Donations from Harrogate residents now bound for refugees at Ukrainian borders
Collections stated on Saturday and volunteers have been inundated with support
Supplies donated by Harrogate residents for refugees escaping Ukraine will soon be on their way to the Polish border.
Organisers are taking cars and vans packed with tons of toiletries, clothes, nappies, batteries and other essential items to a hub in Halifax where they'll be sent to the refugee camps.
Collections started on Saturday and the team behind it have had to turn people away in recent days after they were inundated with support from Harrogate residents.
This morning, volunteers have delivered dozens of boxes to a facility in Halifax which will then put them in a storage container bound for Poland. The supplies will be distributed in one of the Polish-Ukrainian border towns or cities.
Kinga Goldsmith, one of the organisers, said:
"It just started snowballing. We had to carry on with it; we'd started it so we wanted to finish it. We've been overwhelmed by the response from people. It's amazing and we couldn't wish for a better community.
"We've had clothes, nappies, toiletries, sanitary products, food, torches, batteries. Everything and anything we could send."
Kinga is originally from Poland but has lived in the UK for over a decade. She has family living in her home country and friends who have escaped Ukraine to the Polish border.
She said:
"It's very worrying. We have family in Poland and you just don't know how far it can get. We have friends who escaped Ukraine last Thursday and it took them five days to get to the border with Poland. It's very upsetting.
"They have two young children and they got up, grabbed their nappies, paperwork and left with what they were standing in. They didn't have time to pack anything.
"By the weekend we already had about 100,000 people in Poland and we're now almost a week later so it will be much, much more that need help."
While the team aren't accepting anymore donations, they have said if more support is needed in the future they will organise another collection for residents to donate supplies for the refugees of Ukraine.