Background (cont.)
19th – 26th September Over the next week time is spent sorting through various donations and also purchasing items to take over with us. Mark does the majority of the work during this period with numerous trips to sports outlets for trainers and boots as well as a number of trips into Edinburgh to collect bags of donations. Special mentions go to Sports World in Livingston for sourcing the Kids Hibs Shirts, assisting in the collating of the shoes, boots, hats and relating equipment and the 10% discount offered on all purchases. Sean Allan, Kenny Murphy and Gary ‘Stretch’ Mitchell contact Lees, manufacturers of such luxuries as Tablet, Macaroon and Fudge and Barrs, Suppliers of Scotland’s other National Drink, Irn Bru, who both provide generous donations of their products to give to the kids. Thanks go to Stretch and Mike ‘Rude Boy’ Craig for collecting a lot of the gear and dropping in to Mark. The club kindly donate an autographed Hibs top for auction and we also have an autographed programme and team sheet from the Rangers 0-3 game donated. These two donations manage to bring in a whopping £370! Mark also speaks with ITA travel to ensure that donations can be taken over and ITA are very helpful in organising this. The money is converted to US Dollars and passed to ITA, again for collection ‘on the other side’. On Friday the 23rd I spend a whole day driving round Edinburgh collecting donations from about a dozen locations before heading out to Mark’s and dropping everything off. We discuss how things are progressing and finalise plans for the trip the following week. A final pack of the bags ensures the majority of the donations and gifts ready to roll by close of play on Sunday 25th September. It is round about this point that it sinks in and Stevie and I realise that we really have created a monster here. The day before we fly out we Mark and myself tally up all the financial donations. These figures included the turnstile collection, donations via the links on both the Hibees Bounce and Hibs.Net websites as well as numerous personal donations and the auctions. Unbelievably, given the short time in which we have been collecting, the final total comes to £3,700!!
27th September – “Mark’s Tale” We have 11 football kitbags, holdalls and suitcases sitting in my Garage, packed and ready to drop off at Edinburgh Airport. ITA have kindly agreed to ensure all the money, donations and gifts are taken through under the ITA banner, hopefully ensuring limited troubles with Ukrainian Customs and Excise. We agree to meet Kevin Thomas and his team at the Airport around 18.00 and I pack up my car and head on through to Edinburgh to pick up Stevie. On arrival at Edinburgh Airport, we are greeted by the first of the departing Hibby’s heading East to Dnipropetrovsk. We line up the four trolleys, which are added to by travelling Hibby’s who have brought along additional donations. After the queue has died down, we get the now 13 pieces of luggage through the excess baggage counter and pray to any gods we may believe in that they all make it to the other side. We have arranged to meet up with Kevin and have the bags transferred to my ‘suite’ in the hotel. We have a couple of Hibs Netters man a hastily organised Dnipro Appeal Collection Point in the Hotel Bar, passing them posters and basic instructions on what to do until we get there. Stevie and I say a fond farewell to the bags and two weeks of hard work, hoping that everything will run smoothly on the other side.