West Midlands groups set off to get kind donations to Ukraine in person
Caring groups from across the region have gone the extra mile to help people in Ukraine, collecting donations and even travelling to deliver them personally.
The growing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands of people leaving their homes and food, clothing and other supplies running short, has seen kind-hearted people give up their own time to send donations to the country.
As well as centres opening up across the region to collect donations, there have been instances of groups and organisations hitting the road to travel to Ukraine and deliver the donations collected.
Two organisations doing just this are the Jet Singh Trust in Wombourne and the Upreach Group in Rugeley, with the leaders of each either preparing to travel to the country or already on the way there.
At the Jet Singh Trust MMA Centre in Wombourne, co-ordinator Davinder Chatha said he and volunteers from the trust were preparing to travel over three days to and from the Polish border with Ukraine with four vans.
He said: "We want to get as much stuff as we can over as possible, so we will be heading down to Dover on Friday night with about four vans full of stuff, meeting with our friend in Slough.
"He's married to Oksana Rakhra, a former Ukrainian Olympic wrestler, who has family out in Ukraine and, as a result, they know what is on the ground level and what is needed there."
Mr Chatha said the trust wanted to hand everything over first-hand and not through any aid agencies as he wanted to maintain control of what was donated, and he set off on Friday.
He said: "Myself and my friends will jump in the vans on Friday and we'll drive all the way there, drop everything off, then drive back and aim to be home by Sunday in time to go back to work.
"We're hoping to meet people on the German/Polish border for them to transport the donations if they can, as this will save us about 14 hours of driving, but we'll just carry on if they can't do that.
"We just want to make sure this follows the ideals of the Jet Singh Trust, where everything is 100 per cent donated and we ensure that everything is paid for and we will continue to do this every couple of weeks."
As the Jet Singh Trust was preparing to drive across Europe, Darren Isles from the Upreach Group was also on his way to Ukraine, driving a van full of donations to the group's offices in Rugeley.
His business partner Emma Devereux said that Darren, alongside his friend Wilf Barclay, had decided to do something to help people in Ukraine and said it was overwhelming to see it happening.
She said: "We're all parents and have said there looking at what is happening over there and seeing children without homes to go to and it's just heartbreaking.
"As soon as Darren told me he was going to do this, I gave him lots of items I had that still had tags on them and I messaged the mums at the schools and everyone just wants to help.
"It's just heartwarming to see the community come together to do something and I feel very privileged to be part of this, having babies at home myself, and it's great to be able to help people in Ukraine."
