19 members of Cranleigh Rotary held a street collection in Cranleigh High Street last week, collecting for the South District Rotary Ukraine Refugee Appeal Fund.

Thanks to the amazing generosity of local people, £3,170 was collected.

Since the street collection, several more generous donations were received totalling almost £22,000.

The generosity of Cranleigh people and the hard work of Cranleigh Rotary members means a significant contribution can be made to support Ukrainian refugees.

£1,000 from the amount raised is being paid directly to Task Force Romania for providing food for about 50 Ukrainian refugees lodging in the Field Centre originally built by the Task Force.

The balance (to be rounded up to £24,000) will be paid into Rotary District 1145’s special account and transferred from there to Rotary Clubs on the border with Ukraine.

Inside Ukraine, local Rotarians are supporting displaced refugees on the move westwards. These people need housing, food, medical supplies, clothing and even shoes.

With frequent power outages following cyber-attacks and air strikes, over 2 million refugees are fleeing west and south in winter temperatures of -8C.

The UN predicts 5 million refugees as homes are destroyed and innocent civilians killed.

Rotary is also working to help the displaced people arriving daily in the countries surrounding Ukraine.

Rotary clubs have volunteers at the borders of Ukraine with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova, working 24 hours each day.

Each support group is achieving amazing things to make the refugees feel welcomed and safe.

Your donations go directly to trusted colleagues in Ukraine and all its bordering countries.

They are able to identify the real needs of refugees in each country – medicines (especially dressings and pain killers for adults and children), warm socks, thermals, food, bullet proof vests, blankets, sleeping bags, first aid kits, dressings, Hygiene products, toiletries, nappies, wet wipes, torches, batteries, candles, laptops, phones, tablet and much more.