Staff at an Eden garden business have hit a £60,000 fundraising milestone for Ukrainian humanitarian aid, partly inspired by their much-loved Ukrainian co-worker, who has been embraced by the local community.
The team at the Pot Place Garden Centre, Plumpton, led by owner Paul Thomas has been raising funds for Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale military invasion of the country in 2022.
Initially donations of clothes, blankets and other essential items were received at the centre, but efforts quickly doubled into bigger fundraising projects, resulting in the transportation of emergency vehicles, medical supplies and equipment.
While the team have hit a £60,000 fundraising total to date, they are showing no sign of slowing down their activities to help civilians in the war-impacted country.
The Pot Place’s efforts ramped up when Ukrainian refugee Kateryna Karabadzhak began working with them after relocating to Cumbria.
Kateryna, from Kharkiv near the Russian border, quickly formed a connection with staff and customers.
Paul explains: “She worked with us here for almost two years at the garden centre and became part of the family basically, she is my Ukrainian daughter, as she is everyone else’s here.
“Obviously having Kat on the staff, they have all met her and they all know her and they all feel a personal connection as well.”
Paul and colleagues recently returned from Lviv in Ukraine where they delivered a large incident support vehicle and an ambulance, the sixth and seventh ambulance vehicles they have delivered to help medical teams in the country. On this latest trip they stayed an extra night in order to be reunited briefly with Kateryna, whose husband is serving with the military near the frontline.
“Kateryna had travelled nearly as far as we had from her home in Kharkiv in the far east close to the Russian border,” explained Paul.
“She has been home since Christmas and stays to support her husband and father-in-law who are both in the military.
“Unfortunately just before we arrived, her city had been hit heavily by missiles, especially the power stations, so the electricity has been off most of the time since then. It was good to see her but sad that she headed east when we were going west back to safety in Poland.”
Paul feels it is vital to keep the spotlight on Ukraine and help as much as possible, as sadly the situation is deteriorating there with civilians and infrastructure under constant threat of attack.
“You have got to do what you can about it. You can’t fix it but you can help,” he said.
“Once back, we now start work on our next appeal, our eighth, to fund another ambulance plus two rapid response vehicles. These have been requested as they are essentially a four-wheel-drive car, like our paramedics have here with medical equipment inside. So the fundraising begins again.”
The team at the Pot Place also continue their appeals for essential items.
“Food and clothing, baby products in particular, medical, anything that people want to donate.
“Our contacts are with the medical people in Lviv, essentially the ambulance service for the region. We like to put as much medical stuff as possible in the ambulances that we take, we will take anything that will be of use to people out there.”
Paul says they also work with a charity called Yorkshire to Ukraine, based in Thirsk which transports blankets, food and other useful items to Ukraine on their behalf.
“Once you have met the people and you have become friends, you can’t just come back here and forget your friends can you? It doesn’t work like that, added Paul. “I first went to Ukraine in 2006. At the time we were raising money for Unicef, for the children of Chernobyl.
“Our customers have been terrific. They have always been bringing us donations, as have quite a few of the local medical practices, whenever they have anything going out of date or any equipment they don’t use.
“We have had medical equipment from the mountain rescue, Langdale and a couple of other mountain rescues as well. We have had a big help from the North East Ambulance Service.
“They have been terrific and have given us all kinds of stuff to fill the ambulances with and helped us to acquire ambulances directly from them in the past, as well.
“They have been great, the more the merrier.
“We take ambulances that have come out of service from the NHS or service providers to the NHS. We buy them and check them out at Cowperthwaites Garage in town. There’s no point in taking a vehicle that only gets to Ukraine and that’s it; it has got to provide a service once it is out there.
“All the staff (25) are involved in the fundraising initiative in some way at the centre with a core team of about 10 of us who do other things such as Ukrainian food evenings to raise money.
“If anyone wants to get involved either helping the fundraising or donating anything, that’s great.”
