News from the Calais frontline...

From Sal Chaffey….

“Having a busy time here and learning so much. Today I’m going to write about how carefully the Care4Calais volunteers sort all their donations!

STEP 1️⃣ Incoming donations unloaded onto some pallets at the warehouse entrance.
STEP 2️⃣ These donations are split into categories and boxed with similar items in the correct place in the warehouse.
STEP 3️⃣ When we do a “distribution” at a refugee site - which is most afternoons, and there are several here - a list is made. On Monday we distributed trousers (either jeans or jogging bottoms) to asylum seekers from Eritrea.
So the warehouse team had to pull out 100 pairs of jeans/joggers in various sizes and box them up for distribution. This is done in the morning by about 6 volunteers. They also check that zips etc work, and the item is clean, and not conspicuous to the police (no orange coats, for example).
STEP 4️⃣ Boxes loaded into the van and off we go! But before that, various roles for queue management have been assigned to named volunteers, with a system of 4 different hand signals for communicating with the rest of the team.
The queue is socially distanced, with small cones on the ground. The asylum seekers choose either jeans or joggers an state their size. Upto 3 choices are offered - great they can find something they like, but it can’t take too long. Normally the C4C convoy arrive at 2:15 and leave at 4:45ish.
STEP 5️⃣ Back at the warehouse, everything is washed down with soapy water and left in the sun to dry. We take off our PPE (British Airways PJ bottoms and a T-shirt plus 2 masks). All goes in our constantly-running washing machine.
STEP 6️⃣ Debrief with a cuppa. Warehouse manager Andy asks us what went well any anything we can improve on - logistics-wise or for Covid protection. Very good to be constantly assimilating best-practice, as the pool of volunteers here is constantly changing. Although Beccy’s been here all through Lockdown!

Thanks for reading and carry on with the excellent work you do in getting donations to C4C and other organisations. Nothing is wasted 🧡💜🧡