NewsChristmas Thank You List It has been a little while since I last sent out an update but it certainly hasn’t been a quiet time for the Dnipro Appeal Committee and Ira and Natalie in the Ukraine. We have been lucky enough to have been offered courier services for a Christmas donation so it has been organised chaos behind the scenes getting everything in place.Before I give details of what’s been happening over the last few weeks I would like to start by giving out some thank you messages to some very generous people. I would like to thank Dnipro Committee member Mark Strachan for taking on the organisation of this project, and for giving up many hours of his spare time to collect and pack all the donated items, as well as spending a fair bit of time bargain hunting (with the thousands of Christmas shoppers) for new clothes for the kids. I would like to thank Graeme Walker at Grandflame Publishing (http://www.warehousenews.co.uk) for helping to make the idea of a delivery to the Ukraine become a reality, and to Mark Noble at UPS (http://www.ups.com) for generously providing us with a delivery through the UPS network. I would like to thank Ryan McOwat and SCA Packaging (http://www.sca.com) for the donation of the boxes for the delivery and the offer to pallet and secure the boxes if required. I would like to thank Mark Jones at Frutin Travel (http://www.frutintravel.com) for allowing his shop to be used as a drop off point for donated items and for his continued support of the Dnipro Appeal charity. I would like to thank Stewart Spence, owner of the Marcliffe Hotel in Aberdeen (http://www.marcliffe.com), for a very generous cash donation and also for personally organising delivery (to my house in Perth) of a selection of donated items from his hotel. Items such as bath slippers and used towels will prove to be very useful indeed. I would also like to once again thank Alistair Shields at Lufthansa in Edinburgh Airport (http://www.lufthansa.com) for once again sorting the charity out with an extra baggage allowance ahead of the Christmas trip to the orphanages in Dnipropetrovsk. And finally, I’d like to thank everyone that has donated clothing, toys, teddy bears and Christmas gifts for the kids in Dnipropetrovsk. Too many names to mention but you know who you are and please know that your generosity is greatly appreciated. A few weeks ago a website update resulted in us being contacted by Graeme Walker who thought he might be able to use his business contacts to organise a courier delivery to Dnipropetrovsk and he asked if we’d like him to follow it up. Obviously we were over the moon at such an offer as such a luxury was well out with the affordability of the charity. We thought it might have been a bit much to hope for but, following a few enquiries by Graeme, we received a positive response from UPS and the ball was rolling. The confirmation of such a fantastic offer meant that we were able to follow up many of the kind offers for clothes and toys that we’d received over the previous months. Pretty soon we had some fantastic donations flooding in and it was committee member Mark Strachan that stepped to the fore to take on the organisation of the delivery. One of the first things Mark did was get in touch with his good friend Ryan at SCA who, without hesitation, organised packaging for the items and the use of a pallet wrapping machine, if required. We had a few requests for particular items for the kids from Ira in Dnipropetrovsk, so next on Mark’s agenda was to fight his way through thousands of Christmas shoppers hunting out the best bargains to be purchased and shipped over. I don’t know how he managed it but he picked up jeans, sweatshirts and all sorts of bargains for around 50 kids at a price that would have made any serious shopper proud! We soon had donated items coming in from all corners of the country. As far north as Aberdeen, as far south as Berwick and almost everywhere in between! With help from Mark Jones (offering up his Frutin Travel shop as a drop off point), and a mention to my long suffering mother also taking deliveries at her home in East Craigs, it seemed we had a mini courier service up and running before we’d even managed to pass it on to the professionals at UPS!! With the donated items eventually working their way out to Mark’s garage in Livingston it was time to get down to the packing. Clothing was sorted into age groups and packaged for delivery straight to the Odinkovka orphanage, along with various other items including toothbrushes, slippers etc., with baby clothes and nappies getting sent direct to the Crisis Pregnancy Centre. Various toys and other gifts were packaged separately and will be delivered to direct to Ira to allow her to make up the Christmas packages to be handed to the kids on Christmas Day.  On top of this we still had the Christmas trip to organise and discussions with Ira about the needs of the children and the orphanages were ongoing. Wish lists from the directors at the orphanages were passed on and the Dnipro Appeal Committee had to review these to ensure we could provide what was requested and also that, with winter well and truly upon them, it could be provided quickly. The lists were approved and Ira was provided with the necessary funding to start ordering many of the items requested. A full report, complete with photos, will be provided in a later update and of course there will be a full trip report on this website some time in January.  Now back to Mark with his packing. Box after box was filled and eventually all the items were packaged and he was left with 12 large boxes. Further discussions with Graeme Walker and with Mark Noble at UPS helped ensure that packaging was labelled correctly and that Customs forms were completed as best they could (although we have found to our cost in the past that Customs in the Ukraine do not always function the way you might expect). With 12 boxes now packed and ready for collection by UPS, Mark suddenly discovers that he is having a bit of trouble trying to get his car out of the driveway! Thankfully though, UPS arrived and the boxes are now winging their way to Dnipropetrovsk and it is hoped that they will be there before the end of the week. Next on the Dnipro Appeal calendar is the Christmas trip to the orphanages, with the planning for this in the final stages. It is anticipated that it will be another successful venture with some nice surprises lined up for the kids for Christmas Day. |
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