THE huge task of bringing a massive influx of Clacks donations in aid of Ukraine to a central point began last week.

A network of three dozen volunteers has been established in Clackmannanshire to help co-ordinate the mammoth donation effort.

It comes after the generosity of Wee County residents was so overwhelming, storage and sorting space was quickly running out.

As previously reported, partners in Clacks have been working to source a big enough venue to support the many donation drives across the county following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

People were meanwhile asked people to instead give to a national humanitarian appeal, but it is understood collection drives can resume in the knowledge that items will make it to places where they make a difference.

Maria Malcolm, CEO and project manager at social inclusion charity Play Alloa, has been helping to co-ordinate the effort.

As she prepared to roll up her sleeves for another busy weekend last week, she said: “The council very generously have let us use a building at Marshill for the sorting and packing of the donations coming in from across Clackmannanshire.

“It’s a huge task, to transport donations to a central point then divide and appropriately box and label items before storing in an area of similar items ready for transport to Poland and Ukraine.

“Over last weekend we established a network of 36 volunteers who were able to come in and help us with this mammoth task.

“It was truly incredible how hard everyone worked, and we will be doing it again this weekend, and for a time to come, as donations are brought in from community facilities across the district.

“The generosity of people has indeed been faster than we have been able to sort as many of us are working full time on top of our volunteering.

“Securing appropriate transport is also not as easy as people would imagine and great efforts are being gone to to get this confirmed.”

As previously highlighted, people at the Wimpy Park Community Group and elsewhere in the county were quick to rally around for invasion-hit Ukraine.

People were also being encouraged to donate to the national Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Humanitarian Appeal for Ukraine.

Last week, it was confirmed that the appeal raised £200m in the UK, £20million of which came from Scotland alone.

Marie Hayes, of Red Cross Scotland and DEC Scotland chair for the appeal, said: “The generosity of people in Scotland has been phenomenal.

“We’ve seen thousands and thousands of donations from individuals, families and fantastic fundraisers being held right across the country.”

Visit bit.ly/3qhLeaU to donate to the national appeal directly.