Diary of a Calais volunteer — 5

Earlier this year, my boyfriend and I decided to spend five days volunteering at the refugee camp in Calais, driving via Dunkirk on the way to and from. To maximise our contribution, we did some fundraising among our family and friends via GoFundMe, and exceeded our target of 200 AUD nearly 10 times over. This meant that we could buy supplies on the ground according to need. These are my daily updates to our donors. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here and Part 4 here.

I’ve spent the last hour or so going through our lengthy receipts, typing French words into Google and trying to remember how big certain tins or packets were. I thought you might like to see the full itemised list, so it’s in a shared Google Doc here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gEcT9gQ3mxh7UYJl8fXhC8q5s_9XtnEzTq91h5b0kZs/edit#gid=0

But the topline results are:

6 carloads
2,100 tea bags
450 tins of food 
46 L of cooking oil

and…. 3000 eggs.

That’s two for each person in the Dunkirk camp.

Why eggs? The woman in charge at Dunkirk explained it like this: ‘When they get eggs, it’s like Christmas. You’ve made everyone so happy’. If the guy who peered into the car and shouted ‘EGGS!!!’ is anything to go by, I think we might have — and it’s all because of you gorgeous supporters.

Within the limits of time and space, we literally couldn’t spend all the money that was donated, so the remainder (around 200 Euro I think — I have to check the final amount) is in safe hands, in cash, with the Dunkirk food donations co-ordinator, Sylvie — a local who told us that she was there because she simply couldn’t turn away from the need on her doorstep. She’s going to use it to buy up more eggs.

Thank you for donating and reading. And — as we found ourselves saying to everyone we farewelled at camp, whether refugee or volunteer — good luck.

If you want to volunteer or donate, start with the Calais — People to People Solidarity Facebook Group to find out what’s needed.