St Patrick's Day boost for Luton's Ukrainian appeal

A Luton group supporting Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion of their country received a rousing response when its members joined the annual St Patrick's Day parade on Sunday.

Fundraising by the Luton Branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB) has entered its third week collecting, sorting and parcelling out vital supplies for the more than 2 million people, mainly women and children, who have been forced to leave their homes.

Fundraising on the march and at the Luton Town match against QPR on Sunday helped raise £3,151 for the group, which will be used to buy vital supplies.

Donations have come from across the region, including Maulden and Stevenage. People have been donating money, but also clothing, personal hygiene products and medical supplies such as dressings, bandages, antiseptic wipes and painkillers, plus adult nappies for the wounded.

Chairman of the Luton group Mykhaylo Ohal, writing to supporters, said: "We would like to express our heartfelt thank you for your amazing and overwhelming response since we had opened the collection of humanitarian aid to support Ukrainians

"In these extremely difficult times, Russian Federation has been trying to ruthlessly invade Ukraine in order to take the freedom and liberty away from our nation.

"There are no right words to describe the support we have received from you in the last 2 weeks – we have felt your hearts opened, your prayers supported us as well as your generous donations will help to save lives of many people!

"In two weeks we have collected 50,000kgs of medicine, dry food etc, which is 3 full lorries.

"We would like to say thank you to our hard working volunteers who have been juggling full-time work with sorting and packing all donations in our community house. Our local Ukrainian community is small (around 40 people) and we have asked and received a great support from other volunteers.

"We would like to say thank you to everyone who has been helping us with logistics and provided their own transport to deliver all donations to a warehouse.

"Special thank you to the local company 'Omega' for all their support with transport, warehouse capacities and their stuff help with all onloading and offloading and palettes packing.

"Thank you to individuals and companies that donated number of boxes and sellotape.

"We are also grateful for all the support from Vinod Tailor [ Deputy Lord-Lieutenant of Bedfordshire] who has supported us since day 1 of our donation collections opening. Vinod has helped us with searching transport to transfer goods to Poland.

"Thank you to Dr Gabriela [Mercik] for providing lorries and support with all documentation for goods transfer to Poland.

"Shortly all goods will be sent to Ukraine from where to be distributed to all regions of our free and independent country.

"At this difficult times for the first time we have felt we are not foreigners any more in UK but rather a part of united nation which stands with Ukraine in resistance against barbaric invasion from Russian state."

The collection point, at 16 Cromwell Hill in Luton is open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10am-6pm.

Supermarkets have also been donating food, so the campaigners are now concentrating on medical supplies and personal hygiene products.

To keep up to date with the work of the group go to www.facebook.com/lutonukrclubA list on Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/HPQ4UXQ3O5LU?ref_=wl_share&fbclid=IwAR3cJUkffAWZ6lQEGpCiYxYvptTFltji7_R9WEE5siLifI-ltuxalq2UJn0 gives a guide to the essential items needed for the refugees.