THE Refugees Welcome in Bude group is appealing for donations of clothes and food that can be handed in at St Andrew’s Church in Stratton later this month.

The church will be a collection point on Easter Monday, March 28 and Tuesday, March 29. The items wanted are clothes for children aged 5-plus, small/medium adults’ jackets, jumpers, trousers, shoes, thermals, gloves, hats, scarves, new underwear and socks, blankets, tarps, tents, backpacks, solar torches, nappies, baby wipes, nappy cream, bandages, plasters, dressings and antiseptic cream.

The food requested includes UHT milk, sugar, tea, coffee, cooking oil, salt, spices, tinned veg, fruit and fish, baby food.

Members of the Bude group last Friday attended an event to celebrate all that is being done to alleviate the situation for refugees. The event, entitled ‘Cornwall: a million stories of sanctuary’, took place at All Saints Church, Highertown, Truro. The speakers included a Syrian student who was studying at Exeter when the war started, he now has no home to return to, two middle-aged local mothers who went out to Lesbos to help sort clothes and cook food, representatives from the Eden Project and Cornwall Council and a young woman from Somalia, who recalled her perilous journey to Europe and told how she was treated on arrival in the UK.

There were updates from local support groups, including the one in Bude.

In April Refugees Welcome in Bude will be organising a fundraising evening featuring artwork by children in a Lebanese refugee camp and a first-hand account, by a North Cornwall lifeguard, who went out to Lesbos and has footage of a dramatic rescue at sea.

For any enquiries about the Refugees Welcome in Bude group call 01288 331424.