This was our second trip to Záhony, over 9 days and 3000 miles in October
The border town Záhony needed urgent help to prepare for Winter. It is the only rail route between Ukraine and Hungary and because trains run on different width tracks in the two countries, the almost-1 million refugees have all had to change trains here and pass through the Welcome Hub.
The Hub has been praised as the best organized entry point in the Ukraine crisis but it is in great danger. Budgets of the aid organizations are almost exhausted and the energy of the local helpers and international volunteers is depleted from 6 months of huge effort.
The “Freedom Train” project is an ongoing co-ordinated response to help the Municipality of Záhony and the wider border region. A number of small groups with experience of working at the border are involved, and fundraising includes a touring exhibition of children’s artwork from Záhony touring Austria.
In our short 5 days at Záhony we delivered, either from home or bought locally (some things were hard to source in Hungary, with restrictions of 1 bottle of oil per customer per day, for example, or 1x 1kg sugar)
570 Breakfast Bars
357 Cadbury Chocolate Bars
176 Hungarian Chocolate Bars
10kg Chocolate Miniatures
14kg Drinking Chocolate
2200 Tea Bags
54 Boxes of Fruit Juice
168 Coffee Sachet Packs
12 large Coffee Jars
12 litres Lemon Concentrate
30kg Sugar
252 Cup-a-Soup packs
21kg Pasta Packs
48 Cracker Biscuit Packs
15 litres Sunflower Oil
198 Adult Filled Toiletry Packs
50 Kids Toiletry Packs
44 large Shower Gel Bottles
275 Large Packed Pencil cases of school equipment
511 Extra Pencils & Writing Pens
91 Pads/Books
32 Toy Activity sets
2 Football Goals
60 Kids Sleeping Bags
50 Handmade Quilts with flannel backs
225 Sewing Kits
15kg Toddler Clothes
172 Tinsel Packs (Blue & Gold)
100 foil Christmas Streamers and Garlands
5kg Misc Christmas Decorations
AND OF COURSE! Approx. 500 Teddy Bears!
This was only possible thanks to the kindness, help and support of so many amazing people who all made vital individual contributions to make this journey happen for a second time!
Just some of those people… to the wonderful people of our home town of Weston-super-Mare… to friends and colleagues nationwide and worldwide, and people we’ve not met, who either financially donated, donated items, made items, or sent good wishes… to the local businesses who gave discounts or free items… to larger businesses with local staff able to help… to our amazing friends and family helping with everything from storing, sorting, packing and labelling the donations and cat sitting while we were away… to our fantastic Mayor for the message of support to Záhony and encouragement before the journey… to our driving team… to our wider team including Helen back home for never tiring of talking to people at our fundraising events, always having a smile and a great idea for “next time”!… and to our friends the other volunteers, and the community in Záhony, for welcoming us back and allowing us to be part of their special place.
At the invitation of the Mayor, László Helmeczi, TeddyBusz is the sole British group helping the Záhony community. We’re also directly helping an Orphanage and Hospital for Children in the Transcarpathia region of Ukraine.
TeddyBusz - Bears of Hope 