So, I asked Silv for an update of how the food-aid project is going. She sent me the email below in italics. I could fiddle around with it and put it in my own words but despite what she says at the end, I’m sure you’ll agree her English is fine.

Just to explain that Agrounia is the first charity we worked with and now we’re working with another large charity called Caritas.

Daniel Gonta is our veg-packer customer near Warsaw who has been working tirelessly as a central distribution depot. We couldn’t do this without him. We’re able to deliver the full loads to him and then he arranges collections and deliveries to the charities with Silv. He’s a star – as is our Silv! It’s a team effort in Poland as is the procurement at this end.

Thanks again to all our generous suppliers who have donated fruit/veg – it really is very much appreciated.

Update of load number 5: 

Load number 5 departed our Evesham depot this afternoon (Wednesday 6^th April 2022) filled with 23 pallets of donated fresh produce. As the momentum continues to grow with our Ukraine aid campaign, we wanted to remind everyone that we couldn’t have done it without the generous donations from our suppliers and the transport help from Girteka Logistics. Our team are working hard to coordinate the project in order to help Ukrainian refugees.

We wanted to highlight those who have donated pallets of produce to our 5^th lorry set for Poland. Thank you to Stewarts for donating 2 pallets of swede, AH Worth for donating 3 pallets of leeks and 8 pallets of potatoes, Jack Buck for donating 2 pallets of celeriac and Kettle for donating 5 pallets of carrots and 2 pallets of swede. We also wanted to say a special thank you to AH Worth and Morrisons for donating a pallet of Easter Eggs, this will be a lovely treat and a taste of normality for children affected by the Ukraine war.

Enough from me! Over to Silv:

Update of stock distribution in Poland so far

Agrounia loaded full truck of mixed produce from our first two deliveries last week and is sorting it from their warehouse in little town Koprzywnica.

From what I managed to find out so far is that two vans successfully delivered food to Ukraine and more will go back as soon as it has been loaded. We are waiting on exact locations however I asked him to prepare little statement to summarise what he done so far and this is what he said:

“Most of the produce was distributed to dining points by the Polish/Ukrainian boarder ie Kroscienko, Medyka, Zosin, Korczowa.” 

In the meantime, I contacted Caritas Polska and they are also helping us out to distribute food to those in need in Poland. They are very well organised and it goes really smoothly with them.

They are delivering a mix of our products to places where Ukrainian’s families are staying such as; Lodz, Plock, Lowicz, Warsaw, Czestochowa, Legionowo – schools, hotels, village halls transferred to sleeping camps.

Many people are staying in Przemysl with Polish families. I know Caritas is preparing smaller parcels with fresh food, dry food, hygine products etc and with help of Polish army and volunteers are delivering it to the households where Ukrainian families have found safety.

So far, we have loaded for all below: 

• Caritas Lodz
• Caritas Plock
• Caritas Lowicz
• Caritas Czestochowa
• Caritas Warsaw

They were sending military trucks, vans and even the fire brigade got involved.

Daniel Gonta who is helping us to sort this from his yard and stores is doing great job and is working very hard to make sure everyone in need gets some help. I doubt he had much sleep in the past two weeks. He says phone rings constantly! I have also noticed that as he rings me straightway to update what is going on and who is coming to collect.

It’s great that we can help like that! It is very much appreciated by many people in need in the hard times they have to live in now

I hope you can make some sense from all of that – I am much better in verbal than written!