When Russia started its ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine in February, the UK and much of the rest of the world went into crisis mode.
Donations of cash, food and clothing came flooding in to charities, while thousands signed up to acts as hosts for Ukrainian families escaping the conflict and arriving in the UK.
It was all anyone was talking about.
However, as the months have gone on, volunteers supporting Ukrainian refugees say that donations have plummeted and all but “died off” as a possible result of the conflict sometimes “not being on the news”.
Group formed four days after Russian invasion of Ukraine
A dedicated Tayside team have been working from the Morris Leslie Auctions site at Errol Airfield since the conflict broke out to provide food, clothing and toiletries to those in Ukraine and refugees arriving in Scotland.
The group, who are called Tayside and Strathearn Help for Ukraine, formed when five members got together on February 28 – just four days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Their aim was to explore ways to provide practical support to Ukrainians affected and displaced by the conflict.
From the beginning, the team have collaborated closely with the Polish Scouts Association in Perth in order to gather donations of food, clothes and toiletries.
However, volunteers are now concerned that they are not getting as many donations as they once were.
‘The number of donations coming in now has really died off’
Lindsey Grieve is a volunteer working with the team.
She said: “I came along to volunteer about two weeks after the project started. To begin with, we got every donation that we wanted.
“Unfortunately, the number of donations coming in now has really died off.
“The donations that we are looking for are non-perishable foods so we can send to specific points in Ukraine.
“We are also looking for medical supplies to go out to Ukraine. We’re looking for toiletries also.”
As well as sending out aid boxes to Ukraine, the group have also sent out welcome boxes and mother and baby boxes to those arriving in Tayside and out in Ukraine as well.
So far, the team have given out 300 welcome boxes to Aviemore, Dundee and Perth.
“We have been using the Scottish Government’s baby boxes and we fill the boxes up with clothes, nappies and a little gift for the mum and these are going out directly to the maternity wards in the hospitals so that parents can pick them up and reuse them”, Lindsey said.
“We fill the welcome boxes full of clothes, toiletries and shoes.
“If it’s children, we add in special Project Linus quilts for them, some toys and a few sweets.
“We try to welcome them here as some have come with no clothes and just one bag between them so we try to give them as much as they possibly could want.”
The warehouse where the volunteers pack boxes and receive their vital donations is located at Morris Leslie Auctions near Errol, with the facility being generously loaned to the team by Morris Leslie himself.
The team joined forces early on with Dundee-based charity Siobhan’s Trust, which was created back in 2020 in honour of Siobhan Dundee and provides support to young people in the community and the environment.
They also joined up with a group of Polish volunteers working near the Ukraine border in Medyka, which has been crucial to the group’s efforts as it has allowed them to tailor the aid that they send over.
The group has since strengthened in numbers with more volunteers rushing to sign up and help – including Ukrainian citizens who are now living in Tayside.
There are now 15 hardcore volunteers, with a committed team called the ‘Angel Ladies’ on hand to sort through donations each day.
So far, the group has sent over £536,000 worth of necessary aid and have sent 25 lorries to the Ukrainian border.
They are currently working to pack up and send their 26th.
The aid gets sent to the Folkowisko Foundation in Cieszanów, a Polish depot working to provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Former military man Kenneth Simpson has been co-ordinating the immense volume of aid donations from across Tayside.
He said: “So far, we have sent 25 lorries, 10 vans and a working ambulance to Ukraine via Poland.
“We deliver the boxes to a Polish depot 15 minutes from the border and they then arrive with vans and mini-buses and take over the aid.
“The reason they come in vans is because it takes up to 30 hours for a lorry to get through the border and 30 hours coming back and they can’t afford to sit for two days.
“However, if they come in a van with humanitarian aid on it they get through in an hour.
“So we send about 26 pallets with each lorry and it takes them 12 journey’s to get that back into Ukraine.”
Businesses and locals from across Tayside have been instrumental in helping the group gather and collect donations.
The flow of donations has slowed ‘right down to a trickle’
Kenny continued: “The businesses and people of Tayside and beyond have been excellent but we are desperate for food, toiletries and medicine.
“The flow of donations has slowed right down to a trickle because everybody is feeling the pinch now with big electricity bills, food prices have soared and Ukraine is now at the bottom of the headlines.”
A recent survey published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that 26% of hosts involved in the Homes for Ukraine scheme want to end their sponsorship after six months or less.
Kenny said: “I think because the conflict is not getting as much news, people think that they might be able to go back, thinking that the war must be over because they’re not hearing much about it.
“However, it’s not any better. It’s actually worse.
“People are full of kindness and spirit when it all kicks off and they want to do something about it.
“We were getting up to 60 volunteers every day and that’s now dwindled because people’s want to help only lasts so long.
“I don’t think people expected it to last as long as it did and if they’ve never had a lodger staying with them before, they don’t know what it’s like.”
He added: “People are full of kindness but they don’t realise what it entails.
“Sometimes it’s not even on the news but after our visit to Ukraine, we realised it’s worse than it ever was and people are more desperate now than ever.”
Kenny, alongside Morris Leslie and two other volunteers from the group, visited Ukraine in July and made a visit to their depot in Poland to confirm that everything was running smoothly.
“The conditions are worse than they were at the start,” he said.
‘Ukraine visit will stay with me for the rest of my life’
Morris Leslie also spoke about the visit to Ukraine: “Just looking at the people’s faces out there, it will stay with me for the rest of my life.
“The desperation was just so moving and then going to the refugee camps was awful.
“These people need help but they still have hope, which is why they fight on.
“We saw so many families without a man, as they have been called up to fight.
“To then see people queuing to get into churches is something I’ve never witnessed before.
“In the graveyards, every soldier has a flag flying with the national flag and every cemetery you went past, you were vey much aware of it.
“It was just heartbreaking.”
Food, medical supplies and toiletries among most in-demand items
The group are continuing to collect donations and are in desperate need of food and toiletries.
The group have also purchased a forklift to send over to Ukraine so that the pallets can be loaded off in Poland safely and delivered to Ukraine.
Kenny added: “As long as people keep donating and the hospitals and people in Ukraine keep asking, we will continue our work.
“The war is not over, it is continuing, the situation is worse now than before and we are desperate for donations.”
You can keep up to date with the group’s lifesaving work on Facebook and can also check collection points across Tayside for donations.
