AFTER only a month of appealing for donations, the Facebook-based group, Dartmoor – Refugee Solidarity for Kos and Islands, has managed to collect a van full of donated clothing for the Syrian refugees to ship it overseas.

With a core of six main members the group has received over 170 likes on Facebook.

Rhiannon from Tavistock, who is the group organiser, was inspired to do something after seeing an image of a young Syrian girl of similar age to her own daughter, waiting for help in the sea.

She searched for a local donation service on Facebook but discovered that the majority of groups were focused on collecting men’s items.

Being a single mother, Rhiannon said she didn’t have any men’s clothing, so set up a Facebook page to arrange the collection of unused items and accessories suitable for men, women and children.

A room at the Tavistock Enterprise Hub was used to drop off and store the donations and the use of a warehouse was donated by the Play Planet children’s centre, to sort and box the donations.

Rhiannon said: ‘The lovely man taking our donations is going from Bristol and driving all the way to Athens.

‘In Athens they are handing over to a shipping company who will then take the donations on to Kos and hand them to Kos solidarity. Kos solidarity is made up of volunteers from Greece and all over the world.

‘The situation on the ground in the Greek islands is that the groups are asking for people to stop sending donations as they have been overwhelmed with kindness and simply do not have the logistics to cope with more.

‘Given how much space and time we needed to sort through what we sent just from our local area, I have an idea of how much warehouse space they would need in order to be able to sort and store things efficiently.’

Due to the difficultly of shipping the donations, the group is now focusing on fundraising closer to home and sending the money overseas.

With the help of local artist Maggi Squire, the group recently organised a fundraising performance of ‘mask dance’ in The Wharf.

‘We are keeping an eye on updates from the islands and will be looking at the best ways to use donated cash funds,’ added Rhiannon. ‘One of the options is co-ordinating with an established charity on Kos to buy food from the supermarkets on the island and feed people.

‘The core volunteer team remains the same and we are now trying to find an opportune meeting time to discuss the next steps.

‘I’d love to pay tribute to my amazing helpers Lauren Woodrow, Kate Brimacombe, Lizzy Harris, Helen Wright and especially Laura Talbot of Play Planet. Laura donated the use of a warehouse space to do the enormous sorting an packing job and helped me for almost six hours straight on the final weekend before the shipment left.’

The group now also has an additional effort, with TACT (Tavistock Area Churches Together) opening a donation point for goods to be distributed to the refugees arriving in Plymouth.

Rhiannon said: ‘This is in conjunction with the Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support Centre and the Red Cross. They will be open from October 16 at the Methodist Church in Tavistock, 10am-12pm Monday to Friday.’

Only clean items of practical use are being collected. At present items needed are men’s clothes (small and medium) and shoes, waterproofs (small and medium), socks, underwear, belts, hats, scarves, gloves, thermals, sleeping bags, toiletries, tents and pots or pans.