Thank you to everyone who helped get donated items to Calais in time for Christmas
CRAG’s bumper collection of donated items, including some donated by members of the St Mary’s church congregation, reached Calais on 13th December, in good time for Christmas and in the middle of a freezing cold snap which made them all the more welcome.
This time, with several depots closed or overflowing, Care4Calais was unable to help with transport and we relied instead on brilliant volunteers from Charlbury. Thank you so much to everyone who offered to drive - it was heartening to get so many responses to our plea for help.
Supporters of CRAG kindly donated funds for the costs of fuel and renting the van. We nearly filled a large van with boxes and bags of clothes, boots and shoes, sleeping bags, tents, blankets, hygiene items and more. Some of the items, such as socks and underwear, were brand new and had been bought specially.
Georgie Bradley, the volunteer driver, describes the effort:
The van was loaded at Alice’s house in record time on Monday afternoon thanks to extra help from Clare Salter and Rosie Foster. Georgie Bradley and Libby Robok set-off at 5.30am on Tuesday for Folkestone through the snowy Surrey countryside due to various accidents on the M25!
Arriving in Calais (the Care4Calais warehouse is a short drive from the Eurotunnel) they were greeted by a lovely team of cold but smiley and very grateful volunteers. The van was unloaded onto pallets for sorting by the 30 strong team of volunteers who work with the charity every day over the winter period.
It was wonderful to see the brightly coloured posters, maps, flags and drawings decorating the inside of the warehouse and encouraging you to discover more about different countries and cultures.
The warehouse stays open for deliveries and collections until 1.30pm when the volunteers then load up their vans for afternoon distributions in the local area. It is wonderful to be donating to such an enthusiastic, hard-working team - full of energy for this cause.
Georgie and Libby's photos (you can see them all here) give a good picture of the operation, and Ollie McAllister who runs the warehouse explains how the material is distributed:
The way in which we run our distributions is that refugees form a single file line at the back of our van (sometimes up to 250 people) and depending on the week, it might be that everybody receives a winter coat on one day.
We size the guys up, but they are given two or three choices for which coat they might want. On other weeks, we might do a trouser distribution and give people a choice between jeans or joggers. Or it might be that guys can choose one item from a possible three or four choices e.g jeans/ sleeping bag/ rucksack. If we get the sizing wrong on clothing items then there is the opportunity for the guys to change their item. We just have to consider the time that a distribution takes and how long people might be standing in a line for whilst it is cold, raining or snowing!
We distribute women's clothing in Dunkirk once a week so yes, this sort of donation would also be really warmly received. We give out a mixture of trousers, tops, coats, underwear, hats, scarves, gloves etc.
Future calls for donations will be sent out in due course, and people are already asking when the next one will be. The most helpful thing to do at the moment would be to hang on to the items if possible, in a safe, dry space until we are ready to sort and store another consignment. Our experience has been that donations tend to arrive in a steady flow for several weeks after a call has been sent out, and during that time they need to be stored and sorted, ready for transport to Calais. Realistically therefore, CRAG can expect to deal with this sort of collection and distribution about two or three times in a year.
Meanwhile, and until the next time, WARMEST THANKS from all the CRAG team, and we are joined in that by the volunteers giving their time and energies in Calais.
Vicky Buser · Tue 20 Dec 2022, 21:40 · Link