Thank you from Care4Calais....
Remember all those Reverse Advent Calendars donated by our amazing supporters and volunteers and organised on Christmas Eve ready for sending to Calais soon afterwards??
Well, look what we received yesterday from the team in Calais!!!!
This week we were in Brussels Park, again standing in the rain for hours but as ever kept cheerful by the welcome we get from the amazing people living there.
Most are African/ Sudanese but more Syrians have arrived this week, making it reminiscent of the early days of the Calais jungle in 2015. The guys laughed and joked with us and shared hundreds of cups of tea, coffee and hot chocolate. One group happily included me in their Arabic conversations not at all put off that I did not understand a word.
A sad experience was the number of people asking for food. We are asked for stuff all the time but it is particularly hard to hear ‘I’m hungry’. This week we were lucky as the wonderful Derbyshire Refugee Solidarity has sent us 165 well made food packs including all kinds of goodies like twix and snickers, fruit and nuts, cereal bars and snacks, and bottled drinks.
We made these up to 300 packs from our stocks and distributed them together with 300 pairs of jogging bottoms. Joggers are very useful at this time of year as they are either a clean pair of trousers or an extra layer under jeans for warmth.
However even after this big distribution there were still some people we did not have enough for. We searched every vehicle for snacks, sweets, anything we could find, as when you are asked for food you can’t help but react. Some volunteers gave away their lunch.
Next week we will take more packs, but with numbers growing it is increasingly hard for us to do this. If you can help please donate now at care4calais.org/donate
Thank you
