Charity leaps into action to help London flat blaze victims
VOLUNTEERS from a Woodley charity sprang into action last Wednesday to organise more than 200 care packages for people devastated by the Grenfell Tower fire in London.
First Days, which is based in Headley Road East and provides baby and children clothes, equipment and toys to families in crisis, recruited 20 volunteers to help box up donations for those affected by the huge fire at the block of flats in west London.
Operations director at First Days, Kathryn Tibble-Taylor said: “It’s that knee-jerk reaction to helping others in a crisis. As soon as we heard what had happened in the early hours of Wednesday morning we immediately stepped up and started getting people together.
“By 9am we had 20 volunteers, six of whom were from one of our corporate sponsors, and by 1.30pm we had 200 care packages put together, which we loaded into a van and sent up to London.
“This is what we are here for, and it is good to know that when we can flick that switch, we can get to action really quickly.”
Donations have been flooding in to help those affected by the fire, which has claimed at least 79 lives and injured dozens more.
Many donation centres have been overwhelmed by the generosity of donors.
Kathryn said: “I don’t think they expected so much to arrive so quickly. We went to St Clement’s Church, which was where the donations were focused, but they had to send us somewhere else.
“When you receive so many donations like that, it can take a long time to sort through them all, so I think they were very grateful to us as all of our donations were sorted into girls and boys clothes, different ages, toys, food and equipment.
“We were able to help a family immediately who had two girls with no clothes. Straight away we were able to make the situation a little easier for them.
“These people will have lost everything, we saw families camped out on the grass in just their pyjamas.
“We’ve had a lot of donations of baby food and formula as well which has been really helpful.
“It is incredible how, in times of crisis, communities can come together to help one another. These are people whose paths may never have crossed, people of all ages, ethnicities, faiths and backgrounds, helping one another, it was amazing to see.”
The charity are now asking people to plan ahead if they want to make a donation.
Kathryn said: “The volunteers up there don't have the time to sort through everything, they need to be helping the families and getting them back on their feet.
“What I would ask is if people did want to make a donation, to wash and sort them first, and to label them so they can be sorted a lot quicker at the other end.”
To make a monetary donation online to the appeal visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ familiesofgrenfelltower.