Warehouse needed for donations

MEMBERS of Newcastle’s Polish community have been working tirelessly to collect items to send to help Ukrainians, both in Ukraine and refugees in Poland, since Russia invaded.

Now they say they are in need of a big warehouse to store the items.

Among them is Wojciech Ploszaj, a Northumberland County Councillor for Blyth’s Kitty Brewster ward, who has been helping with efforts in the North East, by working with Newcastle’s Polish Club and setting up donation points around Northumberland.

Mr Ploszaj, who moved from Poland to the North East in 2013 and became a UK citizen last year, said that lorry loads of goods have been donated to the Polish Centre (Osrodek Polski) in Newcastle, so much so that they need a warehouse to store items before they can be transported to Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine and is hosting hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of refugees.

“It’s amazing, the scale of what’s happening here,” said Conservative councillor Mr Ploszaj, who believes the value of the goods and labour that have gone into the volunteer effort will be worth millions.

Initially, donated items were going to be stored in a vacant unit in Manor Walks.

“But that (250 sq ft) unit is too small,” said Mr Ploszaj, who used to live in Rzeszow, under an hour’s drive away from Ukraine.

The group needs a large warehouse, such as an empty factory unit, preferably north of the Tyne. Mr Ploszaj is in talks with Port of Blyth, who he says have been supportive as volunteers work out the logistics of transporting the donations to Poland, but a warehouse there could create difficulty as volunteers may not be able to come and go seamlessly, due to security at the port.

The aim is to send off the first batch of donations by the end of this week or early next week.

The councillor and engineer also warns that the crisis caused by Russia invading Ukraine is not going to go away quickly and called for more coordination in Britain to make the relief effort as efficient and effective as possible.

He said: “There are about 600,000 refugees just in Poland. It’s a longterm issue, it will take months to sort out, potentially years.

“These people lost everything, it’s just a normal thing to help them.”

If you can offer a large warehouse to assist with storing donations for Ukraine, email Wojciech Ploszaj on wojciech.ploszaj@northumberland. gov.uk