A SOUTHAMPTON company is paying for humanitarian aid donated in the New Forest to be shipped to Ukrainian refugees.
Oceanside Logistics is covering the cost of sending the aid to Poland, where it will be distributed to people who have fled the fighting.
The first shipment, comprising 100 boxes of toiletries and other goods, has arrived at the Polish-Ukrainian border.
It includes baby food, children's clothing, general toiletries, women's sanitary products and was collected from St Michael and All Angels Church, Lyndhurst.
Oceanside Logistics is based at Brunel Road, Southampton.
Director Harry Green said: "We are proud to help the New Forest Benefice assist the people of Ukraine. Each day it is getting more difficult to send charitable goods into Ukraine, so we are happy to do our part to get this aid where it needs to go.”
Each shipment will cost the company more than 1,000 Euros.
The original destination was supposed to be a church in Lviv but the shipping company used by Oceanside encountered a raft of problems.
Following a rise in military strikes by Russia it was unable to find a driver to take the goods into Ukraine.
A company spokesperson said: "After a week of issues we have been able to find a church in Poland who will take the goods and get them to Ukrainian refugees."
Donations are still being collected at St Michael's, which dominates the western entrance to Lyndhurst and is one of the best-known churches in the Forest.
- READ MORE: Southampton medics fly to Polish border
The churchyard is the last resting place of the "real" Alice in Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll created the character in 1862 after going on a boat trip near Oxford with a group of other people, including a girl called Alice Liddell. She asked him to tell her a story, which he wrote down and later published.
After marrying Reginald Hargreaves at Westminster Abbey in 1880 Alice and her husband embarked on a new life together in Lyndhurst.
Staff and customers at one of the village's best-known pubs are also helping Ukrainian refugees.
Louise Hodgkins, licensee of the Mailman's Arms, has raised £1,000 for the Red Cross Ukraine Appeal by selling 1,000 ribbons she has made with the help of her mother.
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