Kind-hearted Horsham residents leave Ukraine collection point ‘overwhelmed’

Volunteers at New House Farm shop in Old Crawley Road invited people to take along donations to their car park - but were forced to turn away visitors when they quickly became inundated.

Kind-hearted residents arrived with car-loads of goods. “We’ve had an overwhelming response,” said Lucie Walton, who organised the collection with her daughter Sarah Atkinson.

“This is the first time we have done this so it was difficult to know the logistics.

“We were overwhelmed with the genorosity of the Horsham people.”

All the donations are now being stored by New House Farm owner Max Walton until the goods are ready to be delivered to a Polish social club in Southampton who will then transport them to the Polish-Ukrainian border.

Among the volunteers helping with the donations were two Ukranian women, living in Horsham, who spoke of their sadness at the war ravaging their home country.

Victoria Mashynets from Dnipro in Ukraine has lived in Horsham for two and a half years. Both she and her friend Iryna Michaelis from the Poltava region have family and friends still in Ukraine.

“I was crying all day yesterday,” said Victoria. “We have been trying to find some way to help and we found out about this place.”

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