Sunderland mum from Poland flies home with six suitcases of supplies for Ukrainian refugees

Joanna Sliwa Bowmaker, from Grangetown, has travelled to her hometown in Poland with six suitcases, totalling 132kg in weight that are full of supplies for Ukrainian refugees.

Joanna’s family live two hours away from the Poland/Ukraine border so have seen first-hand the impact that the Russian invasion is having on the Ukrainian people.

As Joanna was set to visit her family this week with her husband Daniel and daughter Matylda anyway, she wanted to do something to help with the efforts to care for refugees in Poland.

The 30-year-old said: “My hometown is about two hours away from the Ukrainian border, my family and friends are all helping the refugees with things like accommodation and food and because we had a planned trip anyway, I knew we’d have space left in our suitcases to take some extra supplies.

"My friend asked if she could a buy a suitcase to fill with stuff for us to take over so I contacted Jet2 to see how much we would be allowed to take.

"Turns out we could have six suitcases between us so my friends and Daniel’s family all pulled together and to my surprise, we ended up with them all full of brand new products.

"I then found a lady in Rzeszow who is providing temporary housing for up to 60 refugees at a time so I will be donating all the supplies to her on Saturday, March 11.”

Joanna hopes that what she has done will be able to act as an example for simple ways in which people in the UK can help Ukrainian refugees.

She added: “Everyone in Poland is mobilised to help the refugees and there are many ways that people abroad can help those who are leaving Ukraine.

“Bus2 Minibus Hire gave us free transport to the airport with the cases as their way of contributing which we really appreciate as we were prepared to pay them.

"Through doing all of this, I discovered a Polish bakery in Sunderland called Paticake.Patisserie who are also accepting donations and giving them to the Polish centre in Newcastle so people can also donate there.”

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