Following the Russian invasion ofUkraine on 24th February 2022, the subsequent sight of both casualties and refugees continues to cause both anger and distress across most of the western world. 


Over 3.7 million refugees, as of the 24th March, have left their homes in Ukraine and headed toward the safety of the neighbouring countries. The vast majority of these women and children have fled to Poland - 2.2 million or 60%.


As a result, the UK branch of the Polska 2050 association quickly organised local donation points at Polish supermarket branches. The request was for clothing, personal hygiene items, food and other survival essentials suchas matches, candles, torches, batteries and first aid kits.

The 'Help Ukraine' Appeal (March 2022)

Given the large Polish community across the Ealing borough, which includes many Hanwell Town supporters, the club organised to collect donations at their game against Binfield on Saturday 03rd March. This was advertised on all of the clubs social media accounts.

 

Throughout the day the screen on the new scoreboard displayed our support for Ukraine, see the photo below. 

Despite Hanwell unfortunately loosing the game, the volume of items donations was astounding. It took four full car loads to deliver the bags and boxes over the next few days. In fact, these had to be taken directly to the home of one of the association's contacts as the supermarket was unable to accept such a large donation. 

All of the items donated are first sorted by volunteers from the association who collate similar items together before then being collected by a courier company. The relevant courier companies are offering their services free of charge. 

 

The donations are being taken to a number of villages and towns along the Polish Ukraine border. The two main locations are:

  • Dorohusk: A small village in Chełm County in eastern Poland with a population of 6,321 in 2020. The Ukraine border is less than two miles away. 
  • Sanok: A small town in south-eastern Poland located on the San River with a population of 38,397 in 2020.  The Ukraine border is approximately 30 miles away.

Mariola Prus, the local association, contact has sent us the following photographs. They show the sorting the donations in West London before being collected by the courier as well as the items being distributed in Dorohusk and Sanok. It’s of particular note that we understand a hotel in Sanok is currently being used to house over 130 women each with young children. 

We have received the following message from Mariola:

 

Wielkiedzięki dla wszystkich sympatyków, piłkarzy i zarządu klubu, który w takwymierny sposób wspomógł naszą inicjatywę. Pomaganie jest niezwykle istotne,warto pomagać i to, ze otwieramy wszyscy serca dla Ukraińców jest niezwykleistotne i kluczowe w zapewnieniu im godnego życia i wsparcia na drodze doznalezienia względnego spokoju. Serdecznie dziękujemy raz jeszcze, że jesteściez nami.


Thanks a lot for your kind help and support to our initiative which is dedicated to help Ukrainians in Poland. A helping hand is so much needed and is very important at the moment. We're very grateful to all the fans, players and committee members of your club for supporting our charity activities for the Ukrainian refugees. We really appreciate that you’ve supported this essential initiative that the Polska 2050 association have organised.


Thank you to everyone who made a donation.


Russell Simpson

28/03/2022