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Appeals for specific donations for Ukrainian refugees arriving in Waterford

Appeals for specific donations for Ukrainian refugees arriving in Waterford
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A fresh call is going out for donations to help Ukrainian refugees in Waterford.

Mayor Joe Kelly says more than 100 have arrived in the last few days alone.

A warehouse at Unit 5 Kilcohan is still open every evening from 5 until 7pm for people to drop off donations.

Speaking to WLR News, Mayor Kelly says they need certain items in particular:

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"What we're short of, if people wouldn't mind and are able to do it, is new ladies' underwear, gents' underwear, and children's underwear.

"We have a huge shortage of that kind of thing and we're hoping that people might drop into shops and buy a couple of packs of those.

"And bathroom products - soaps, sprays, toothbrushes, toothpaste - anything like that."

When it comes to other items of clothing, Mayor Kelly says they have plenty of donations, apart from clothes specifically for teenagers:

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"We have quite a lot of clothes but if we had clothes from the 12/13-year-old to the 16-year-old - they have a different taste to adults, let's put it that way!

"So, if there's people who have lots of teenagers in their house, that don't use the tops, the hoodies and so on, we'd love to have those."

The final shortage volunteers locally are trying to deal with is footwear.

"We have a desperate shortage of shoes," says Councillor Kelly, "any kind of footwear; shoes, runners, children's shoes and children's runners.

"We don't have enough of those and there's a lot of Ukraine that have arrived over the last few days - we're certainly up over the 100 mark - and they've come with very, very little.

"That's why there's such a call going out now because we need to take care of these people."

This appeal comes as a huge accommodation crisis is also looming for refugees in Waterford.

It was spoken about at Thursday's council meeting and you can read more about that here.

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