A WELLINGTON’S builder took the decision to travel to Poland with a friend to deliver the donations the community gathered for the Ukrainian refugees.
Scott Cordy and his Polish friend Kris Kaluzny, who owns 'All in one', Carpentry business, took the decision to drive all the way to Poland from Cotford St Luke to deliver donations to refugees.
Mr Cordy said he “couldn’t just sit and do nothing while these poor Ukrainians were fleeing their homes to find some safety in Poland from the Russian invasion”.
The van full of donations
The generosity of “our amazing little town” donated over £3000 towards travelling costs, he also added.
Mr Kaluzny’s road knowledge over to Poland was invaluable and of course, being Polish himself, he also knew where to find the right drop-off point, Mr Cordy said.
Watching the news daily they decided they had to help in some way, so they decided to take as much as they could in a van to Poland themselves, to make sure every single item that people have so kindly donated got there safely.
They left around 10am Wednesday, March 9 via the Euro Tunnel and after 25 hours they arrived in the Polish city of Lodz, where their drop-off of choice was.
Mr Cordy and his family put out a plea Wednesday, March 2 on Facebook to Wellington and surrounding areas to donate what they could and the town responded immediately.
Some of the items that reached Poland
Scott said: “It is truly amazing how generous people are to complete strangers. A steady stream of people was coming to our front door with donations for six days.
“I think our dogs must have got a sore throat from barking at all our visitors coming to our front door.”
Scott also said a really lovely older lady turned up at his front door with her disability walker full of heavy bags of all sorts of goodies for the refugees, and she came again with more donations over a couple of days.
“It's just so amazing how quickly word gets out,” Scott also said. “We live in an amazing, generous community. How lucky are we?”
Local companies like Buildbase have been very generous with donating torches, boots, rubble sacks, paper, etc Lou's sweets and treats did an amazing job with collecting masses of generous donations including sweets, nappies, food, medicine, toiletries, etc.
The Beauty Room donated a large sum of cash and food. Conway cladding donated a lot of food and cash. P&C car sales also made a cash donation.
Taunton & Wellington Pensioners donated a large sum of money.
Odettes also donated an amazing amount of money & A J Dyke Roofing also kindly donated some food & money towards travelling costs.
Oaktree Court nursing home donated some brand new duvets.
Jurston Barn gave food and towels and toiletries; one anonymous donor donated an amazing £500 to pay for a bigger van.
The Polish supermarket in Taunton offered to fill any remaining van space with food, while Mr Cordy's neighbours knocked on his door to donate cash.
All cash left after travel went directly into the hands of the drop-off point in Poland.
Mr Cordy said that when they dropped off all the donations it was quite emotional and both felt so happy and proud to represent their community.
Mr Cordy, Mr Kaluzny, and their families would like to say a big thank you to every single person who reached out to them and donated so generously.
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