To not understand why people are driving to Poland?

[Tgbiyr]

Genuinely interested in whether I’m missing something.

I have a friend on Facebook who’s driving part of a convoy of goods for Ukrainian refugees from the UK to Poland. Toiletries, clothes etc. He asked people to donate goods, and now he’s asking people to donate towards fuel costs.

I cannot understand why anyone is doing this. Would it not be better to donate to the Polish charities supporting the refugees than transport lorries full of goods thousands of miles? Or ask for donations of goods to support refugees who come to Britain? What am I missing?

AIBU to think that driving lorries from the UK to Poland isn’t helpful, and the money would be better spent being directly donated to organisations in Poland?

@jclm

I am absolutely gobsmacked by this phenomenon as well. Why not leave it to the professional charities with experience, networks and training in logistics and disaster relief? In our local area we have random people filling up trucks, advertising for Amazon donations to be delivered to them in the UK, and driving to Poland as well. Not the done thing to point out that it would be much more effective to simply donate to a relevant charity.

Or just buying stuff on www.Amazon.pl and having it delivered locally.

People are batshit and yes, just a form of virtue signalling. There will be no shortages of cuddly toy donations in Poland ffs. Do something practical and get cold hard unexciting cash to the right organisations.

Let not your right hand know what your left hand is doing
Quote from memory from the gospels As one of Jesus's comments about good deeds or charity in helping others. It may well have been a further comment re the Good Samaritan
If I want to give to a specific charity or need I go to my bank & ask them they have lists

YANBU. I remember this being a problem even in America back when hurricane Katrina hit. I was younger and didn't understand how ill thought-out driving a Mack truck full of donations could be until a local guy filled one and then couldn't afford the fuel.

I think people get it into their heads that charities are corrupt and waste money, and that donations are diverted to overheads. That's usually what I start to hear when I dig a bit deeper with "I want my donation to actually go to somebody."

But you can research local charities and do some quick investigation to find one you trust. Probably easier and more effective than trusting a local horse box owner to know what they're doing with getting to Poland.

100% agree - send money not stuff

My office (so degree educated professionals) are collecting toiletries to make care parcels in shoe boxes: it’s not a kids harvest festival, just donate £10 not your bric a brac!

Donations get gift aid too www.dec.org.uk/

I will not be voicing my opinion at work (unless asked)

Many people can't afford to donate money though they do have spare clothes and toys however so they do what they can honestly most of my universal credit groups are full of people trying to work out if taking someone in will effect there benefits as they are already struggling and don't want to make their bad situation worse by helping others out 😕

Not to mention the money that is spent on petrol/ferries/channel tunnel to get all the stuff there that could be put to better use by spending it on things that are actually needed in Poland.

I'm going on Sunday . I have a huge transit van full of specific stuff requested by the 'helpukrainiancenter' based in Chelm Poland.

We have a huge amount of new unused medical equipment from 2 care homes that have closed down. The stuff is unopened and still sterile. My Polish friend has literally begged for this. I have a free van, donated by local builder . I have crowd funded the petrol. 1 k to take 50k of stuff.. not a bad return.
I don't want 'thanks'
I absolutely don't want my name on this .
I do not want this stuff in a landfill so this is the only acceptable action.

Sending money helps. Sending stuff helps the senders feel good.

@Theunamedcat

Many people can't afford to donate money though they do have spare clothes and toys however so they do what they can honestly most of my universal credit groups are full of people trying to work out if taking someone in will effect there benefits as they are already struggling and don't want to make their bad situation worse by helping others out 😕

Better they donate to charity shops then, or sell on eBay and donate the money - honestly, the huge cost of fuel and ferry to get to Europe massively outweighs the benefits of a few bags of second hand clothing and toys, much of which will be fit only for the bin.

I get that people want to help, but this isn't helping, and in some cases it's actively making things worse.

What people who've gone out there could do on the way back in order to help a little bit is offer a lift to people from Poland to another country like Germany, Austria...etc.

We sent physical medical things which went to Poland and then had military escort to hospitals.

This is a little bit different. There are some shortages that sending equipment will help with, but hats and scarves and kids toys? Plenty of these in Poland they can buy and distribute locally without wasting money on fuel transporting our shit to them.

Looks like I’m the only one here but I thought Poland was absolutely rammed with refugees? As long as the uk people with the trucks are giving it out themselves eg when they see people walking or waiting at boarders

Think for a second how that would work logistically. They’ve got an HGV full of black bags of crap, they see some refugees walking along the road and stop and open the back and say “help yourself’. Or they get to the border, which is already crowded with organisations trying to help, and again, throws open the truck and says “free stuff here.” Can you comprehend just how much stuff is in the back of an HGV and how difficult it is to offload it, and then for people to sort through it?

This is not the solution. Just send cash.

I voted YABU because I have known a few Van trips where they were driving to known friends/family who had requested specific things. It must be heard for everyone to be getting what they need so I don't think there is a problem with aid arriving in different ways.

Driving a van full of tins to Poland is about the most wasteful and inefficient thing I can think of. They have tinned food there, donate the cost of the food and travel FFS.

Whatever you do, stay off Martin Roberts twitter 😬😬😬

I work for a large organisation and an email came round today saying "we are all so proud" of colleague X who is taking time off work and taking a vanload of stuff to Poland. I too think a donation of money, including the money that the fuel to Poland will cost, would have been more useful. Obviously haven't said anything at work as the narrative is very much that we need to be seen to be "doing something". And an acquaintance on a WhatsApp group has been sending links to a Just Giving page for a random person who's tenuously linked to a friend of the acquaintance and is going to take "toys for the children" to Poland...people have given £16,000 to this person so far, which seems a huge amount of money. I may be hugely negative here but how could anyone be sure that this individual is going to use the money honestly and distribute the toys etc wisely?

TBF, the load that went from here had very little coverage on FB - just a couple of posts about donation centres. A lot of Polish people live and work in this area, so I'd be surprised if it wasn't going to local contacts.

@secretsqizzle

I'm going on Sunday . I have a huge transit van full of specific stuff requested by the 'helpukrainiancenter' based in Chelm Poland.

We have a huge amount of new unused medical equipment from 2 care homes that have closed down. The stuff is unopened and still sterile. My Polish friend has literally begged for this. I have a free van, donated by local builder . I have crowd funded the petrol. 1 k to take 50k of stuff.. not a bad return.
I don't want 'thanks'
I absolutely don't want my name on this .
I do not want this stuff in a landfill so this is the only acceptable action.

This is a useful way to contribute!

You're responding to a specific request. Both you and the recipient understand the goods being moved. The goods have a specific destination. The recipient has a practical plan about how to use them.

V different from a transit van full of random miscellany with no known destination.

A donation of money makes much more sense than old clothes or tinned food. But the donation of sterile medical gear seems like a very good idea.

One association here is loading up a coach with medical supplies, bottled water and such like and driving it into Ukraine to Lviv. They drop of the supplies then fill the coach with women and children. They have done 4 runs so far. Now that seems worth it, but obviously has an element of risk for the coach driver.

Am in the US and can't easily send items. But I remember Hurricane Katrina and sending money wasn't the answer. There were no "things" to buy in Mississippi and Louisiana. We sent trucks and trucks of bottled water because there was no clean drinkable water in the parishes. We sent 18-wheeler washing machine/dryer trucks so people could wash clothes as the laundromats were washed away and there was no electricity for private homes. I personally helped fill two 18-wheelers. One with supplies for a daycare center so people could leave their children somewhere safe while they worked. One filled with dog and cat food.
Point is, there may be things needed that Poland can't supply. Not every donation is showing off or virtue signaling.

@kittensinthekitchen - I think gorp is a typo for gawp (as in stare at with an open mouth type thing).

YANBU some people just love to get in the act and get the kudos of organising this stuff.

[quote Polly2345]ideas.ted.com/after-a-disaster-dont-send-toys-or-clothing-send-money-heres-why/[/quote]
This

and iv been sharing on fb

What does Poland want?

Because they're attention seekers

Our local Ukrainian run effort are very keen for donations and it's been a huge local community movement. They haveorries leaving daily. They know exactly where its going and what they need. I think it gives them much more control. As unpopular as it is we have no idea where donations end up. So I personally think this approach is the right one. Especially as many who once they've dropped off donations are travelling all over the country ferrying Ukrainians out of the country into safety. Like it or not this war needs a Dunkirk effort and the Ukrainians I know are incredibly grateful for those travelling to Poland with donations.

I don’t know about the individual circumstances of your friend but most people organising aid transport are Polish (or from other neighbouring countries) who have connections their and are for filling the needs of smaller communities with a sudden influx of thousands of people and no way of looking after them all. They are pretty much doing it in ‘real time’ off of their own backs.

Yes, aid agencies are doing most of the work which is why local Polish community groups are also asking for money donations to aid agencies and charities too.

A lot of these comments are fairly miserable in nature.

At Dunkirk they didn’t say ‘just donate to the RNLI and we’ll get the lads back eventually etc