We finally found the new warehouse after several false starts but it’s finally moving out from a medium sized warehouse into a huge warehouse that used to be a grain barn. An industrial grain barn. So they’ve quadrupled their warehouse space and are now able to receive lorry loads of goods instead of just small van loads. That has to be a big improvement. This warehouse is a group effort with the largest group that official runs it being the Czech Team. ps. you can click the link and see their project page and videos on Idomeni Volunteers.

I previously met members of the Czech team while over in Lesvos volunteering earlier in the year and they are very hard workers. So seeing them there in Idomeni as well .. well it’s fantastic. The work that they do there sorting out all the myriads of donations is the hidden part of refugee aid. If the donations are not sorted correctly into usable items, well .. nothing gets distributed and aid cannot be given effectively.

I massively respect the work that goes into collecting and sending donations, still I wonder if a little bit more preparation could be used when sending donations to the places that will then distribute? Quite often boxes that arrive are labelled for an item and then you find a mix of items in it. It’s far more effective to pack smaller boxes of exactly one item than to expect the receivers to further sort items into various locations.

If you are donating to a warehouse that will then ship goods onwards to refugees, then chances are that they will be sorted into appropriate boxes. Still, its very helpful to have a bag of shorts one size, bag of shoes one size, bag of t-shirts one size into a larger bag with everything together sent to a UK warehouse for sorting into larger boxes for shipment.

To put it into perspective. When it comes to distributing which is more effective do you think?

1. Going to a self of boxes and having to rummage around each to find a sized item.
2. Going to a shelf of boxes with only one kind of item in one size.

I think option 2 is better and hope you do too. We love donations, we know that so much of it is desperately needed. Yet volunteers outside of the countries needing aid (ie. Greece & France) can spare a bit more time per warehouse to sort into appropriate boxes .. rather than rely on volunteers having to sort in the local area to the refugees. People are spending hundreds in order to volunteer for a week and how would you rather spend it volunteering? Would you spend hundreds of pounds of your own money to get yourself there in order to sort .. or spend that same money and your time giving the aid out?

Warehouse sorting, its far less sexy but it is a CRUCIAL part of getting aid out to refugees. Spend a little bit of time thinking about how you can help when giving your donations. This message is especially for the warehouse distributors who said aid to the local warehouse nearest to refugees. That preparation and effort is what we do over at Refugees START and Yorkshire Aid.

We receive ton loads of donations into our Leeds warehouse with Yorkshire Aid and we sort exactly to the local need of the refugees. Boxing items with the male or female symbol, a graphic of the item and its size. It is easy to read across all the languages that people speak who volunteer.

some lovely onesies, not going to refugees

To wrap up, above is a donation of very sexy onesies that didn’t make to the refugees!

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  Boxes and boxes of unsorted shoes

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  an entire row of nappies, just nappies

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  a row purely of 'rain shoes' doesn't necessarily mean that every box is actually that

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  more boxes of unsorted shoes that are not sized

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  An entire row of unsorted baby gear

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  this is good, shoes tied together

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  some lovely onesies, not going to refugees

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  the new kitchen for Hot Food Idomeni

Oooo I almost forgot, Hot Food Idomeni have nearly finished the construction of their new kitchen making thousands of hot vegan meals per day.