Unexpected Outpouring of Generosity for Nepal

It all started with a simple idea.  Instead of a whole bunch of people driving to Aldershot, I would combine efforts and collect a few things from local people who had things to donate and drive it all to the Army base for Ghurkas.  It would save time and petrol.  And it meant I could finally do a little something for the people of Nepal who had lost everything in the horrible earthquake that hit last week.  It was only a small gesture.

After arranging to use our local village hall in Old Windsor as a drop off point and enlisting the help of a fellow resident, we discovered that the containers going to Nepal from Aldershot were already full.  I had committed to people that their donations would go to Nepal so I needed to make sure that happened.  But how?

In a Twitter storm, I initially received a vague commitment from the British Red Cross that they would take our donations.  It later transpired that what they meant was they would take our donations and sell them in their shops for cash.  I was unhappy with that arrangement as many of our items would be unsuitable for resale in the UK as they had been specifically chosen with the survivors of the disaster in mind. 

Having filled my car with the donations from that day and due to demand, we secured the hall for a further drop off slot for the following evening. I spent the night looking for an organisation that would sort and ship the goods for us.  Purely by chance, Twitter came to my rescue.

I spotted a tweet by the Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Councillor Denis Hyland, 

@CllrDHyland.  The tweet was a photograph of a flyer attached to a lamp post indicating that goods donations being taken at Eltham Leisure Centre and Woolwich Town Hall would be shipped to Nepal supporting the local Nepalese community.  Greenwich apparently has the largest Nepalese community in Great Britain.  The next morning I set off to Eltham.

The Leisure Centre was shocked by the quantity of goods we donated.  I indicated that I would be returning the next day with the same again.  I returned to Old Windsor just in time to open the doors of our village hall for the next donations.

What happened next was beyond my wildest dreams.  The room started to fill up.  Within the first 15 minutes, we had surpassed the volume of goods donated the day before.  The parking lot was full.  People were arriving with cars filled with bags.  People brought tents.  We received over 15 tents.  We received sleeping bags, some used, some brand new with the tags still on them.  We received baby nappies and food and wipes and clothes.  We received shoes and boots and slippers.  We received blankets, probably 100s of blankets.  We received coats, hats, scarves, gloves, mittens.

As we neared the end of the three hour collection window, it became abundantly clear that I wouldn't fit it all in my car since it was already full.  We had run out of room in the hall.  We had filled my car and people were leaving bags just outside the door.

Once again the power of social media swung into action.  With more than a little from from my friends, we secured a small truck courtesy of Frontline Logistics, to meet me and a few others at the hall at 8 am on Friday morning.  We loaded the truck FULL and headed off towards Eltham.

Mid journey I received a tweet from a member of the Nepalese community asking if we would deliver to Woolwich Town Hall as the sorting and packing centre was located there.  We modified our destination and continued round the M25.  

Arriving at just after 10 am, we were greeted at the door by a member of the borough.  With the help of the countless volunteers, we set to unloading the truck.  I was shown to the sorting room where a large number of Ghurka widows were sorting items and boxing it up.  It was an incredible operation.  Every box had to be labelled with contents itemised and weighed.  The room was full of goods and volunteers.  What initially looked like chaos was, upon careful inspection, a fine oiled machine.

I hand delivered a bag of baby shoes that one woman had handed to me saying that they were her children's baby shoes and had been kept carefully preserved in her loft all these years.  She was donating them because the children of Nepal needed those shoes more than she needed those memories.

I also hand delivered a lovely 100% wool blanket that must have cost a fortune.  It was given to me by a woman who told me it was her mother's who had passed away.  She could still smell the scent of her mother on the blanket.  Again, she felt the people of Nepal needed that blanket more than she did.

I wept at every story.  

I was introduced to the leaders of the Nepal community and they were touched by these stories. They were overcome with gratitude at the volume of goods we had come so far to deliver.

I was lucky to meet these leaders.  Notably, I met Sonia and Fatta Thappa, who run Skills and Care, a dynamic, community-led, Nepalese social enterprise organisation.  Fatta was the individual I was exchanging tweets with.  I also met Sushila Karki of Nepalese Nurses, who have already sent doctors, nurses, and goods to Nepal and were planning to send more over the next few days.

I was satisfied that our community's donations would make it to the survivors of the earthquake.  On Saturday, 2 May, 500 kg was shipped and 1600 kg will be shipped tomorrow, 5 May.  

Our job is not done.  Due to our overwhelming response, funds are needed to pay the cargo.  You can help our goods get to Nepal by donating HERE.

I would like to personally thank Sarah Wants who helped me collect goods at the hall both days, even on the day of her son's 6th birthday and helped load the truck.  Also, a big thanks to Chris at Frontline Logistics who donated the use of his truck and Fiaz who did the driving and loading/unloading at both ends.  Also, thank you to the Old Windsor Memorial Hall who donated the use of the village hall and committee room on both days.

And lastly a big thank you to all of you who responded by opening your hearts and giving.

Please Write

I didn’t send Christmas cards this year.  There.  I’ve said it.

Normally, I send well over 300 cards to just about every corner of the globe.  It costs us a small fortune in postage and is a huge effort.  Every year I struggle to get Marc and the children to sign them and very rarely do I manage to get them all done in time to get them to their final destination before the big day.

I don’t mind the cost.  Or the effort.  I don’t even mind that I receive less than 50% of that number back.  I am happy just knowing that I reached out and said hello.

But this year I wanted to do something more than just say hello.  This year I wanted to reward and recognise the effort that those of you made when they sent us a card/letter.

Since I usually manage little more than a scribbled, illegible note and our signatures, I have vowed to send a handwritten, personal, old fashioned letter to everyone who sent a holiday greeting card to our family.

My Grandmother was a great letter writer.  In fact, the entire family regarded her letters as an informal family newsletter.  She kept everyone up to date on what was happening with everyone else.  When my Grandmother died, I found great comfort in discovering the stacks of letters that had been written to her in response to letters she had written.  But most comforting (and painful in equal measure) were the stack of letters that I found I had written to her over the years.  Most of them span the timeframe from when I left university and moved abroad. 

The changes I underwent as I faced the challenges ahead of me make for some hilarious and some excruciating reading.  But then I brought those letters home and matched them up to the letters she wrote back to me.  Every single week.

They are an invaluable collection of advice and guidance given and taken.  They are filled with comfort and encouragement.  They are full of the tidbits of our lives as they were and reflect our growth.  They are the perfect picture of her and me.  They are my most valuable possession.

In that spirit, I embark on sending a proper letter complete with illegible handwriting and mundane details of the weather.  But also, I hope, a little bit of me and my family; a little bit of what happened and what lies ahead.  You will receive one of these letters if we received a card from you.  And if you failed to send a card, don’t worry.  I promise to reply back with a handwritten letter to every hand written letter we receive.

Facebook, tweets, emails and ecards don’t count.  Whilst I am a big fan of electronic communication tools, in fact I would be lost without them, I still believe in the pen and paper.  There will come a time when I will leave this world, much later than today one hopes.  When that time comes, it will prove next to impossible to recover the emails and ecards sent to me.  I doubt that anyone will even bother.  These digital records of our relationships will be lost along with our heartbeat.

But a soul lives on in the letters we write and send on paper.  They are tangible.  They are real.  You can take them with you on the long journey of life.  And I hope you do.

On my darkest days, and I have more than I would like to count, I reach into the box that contains my Grandmother’s letters, the cards from my mom and dad, my sister, my friends.  It is the ones that tell me what they have been doing and what they want for me that lift me up and help me to take the steps I need to continue to move forward.  Without these letters/cards I dread to think what would happen to me.

Please write.