A children's hospice is gathering warm-weather clothing and is putting together plans to send donations to civilians in stricken Ukraine.
East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices, which cares for children and young people with life-threatening conditions across Essex and neighbouring counties, will be sending surplus coats, hats and scarves to Ukrainians as the crisis in eastern Europe intensifies.
Colchester has two Each charity shops - one in the High Street and another in Peartree Road, Stanway.
Normally heavily discounted and sold in the charity’s end-of-season sale, the goods will instead be handed to two haulage businesses who are offering to transport donations to the Ukrainian border.
The coats, hats and scarves will be sorted by staff and volunteers at the charity’s retail distribution centre and sent to Ukraine where temperatures have dropped to -20C.
Relying on voluntary donations for the majority of its income, Each decided to accelerate a drive in donations after staff and volunteers were eager to help those who are suffering or displaced as a result of the invasion.
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Head of retail central operations Sarah Throssell said: “We’re all watching the news with a sense of horror and disbelief.
“It’s a truly awful, desperate situation and, like everyone, we want to do what we can to help – this is only a small gesture but hopefully it helps in some way.
“We have two big sales every year – one at the end of the summer season and one at the end of the winter.
“They include large amounts of unsold stock and, at this time of year, that includes coats, carves and hats.
“These are exactly the kind of thing in demand by aid agencies so it makes perfect sense to divert them to be used in Ukraine – we hope it helps.”
Each has added it will not be requesting extra donations from members of the public as they are already in possession of enough suitable stock to donate overseas.
“We’ll sort, separate and bag everything here and the plan is for the first batch to be transported by the end of this week,” Mrs Throssell added.
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