Midhurst resident fills lorry with aid for Ukraine

The aid was organised by Eddie Boyes, a local resident who has been trying to get his family over from Ukraine, who said that he was amazed by the response from the community.

“The response has been tremendous, It’s been absolutely amazing. There’s people giving up donations, there’s people giving up their time to help. We’ve got two lorries coming this morning (Monday March 21) and we’ve already set out one load last week and our hub is full to overflowing almost with stuffed that’s been put up, boxed and ready.

“I’ve got two vehicles coming today through a personal connection through work and are taking it up to a guy who has an arctic vehicle who is going to load up his stuff with vehicle with our stuff and the things he’s got from Norfolk which all go at the end of this week to Ukraine.”

“We actually haven’t managed to count how many boxes we’ve received because there are so much stuff that has come through from local areas.

“There’s a lady in Portsmouth that has been coming up every week and came up on Saturday with a huge van load. It’s stuff coming from everywhere; Duncton, Northchapel and everywhere else besides.

“We’ve picked up some stuff from a guy in Bexhill who had so much stuff to give which he couldn’t shift anymore so we picked that up for him. Friends from school, I mean I’m 57 and I’ve known then since I was four or five and they have been over there helping and donating stuff round their area.

“My daughter lives in Steyning and Upper Beeding and she’s been gathering things over there so it’s been a massive effort.

With all the donations that he has received Mr Boyes has no intention of stopping the donations to the people that need it most.

“We’ll keep carrying on for such time as we don’t need to really. Obviously there are going to be people coming over here, like one family in Petworth that’s arrived last week who have come and helped and we’ll use some of their donations to help them whether that be clothing or food or toiletries, we’ve got all sorts.

“That’s the next step if you like, to carry on what we are doing here but when people arrive into the community they arrive here with virtually nothing except the clothes on their back so they’ll need support from us.

“If people want to keep on donating as much as they can, because the response that we’ve had just blows me away.

“These people don’t have to do it, they do it because they really want to.”

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