After donating money to a Polish Rotary club helping support Ukrainian refugees, three members of Abergavenny Rotary visited Poland recently to further establish and maintain links between the rotary clubs.

Abergavenny Rotarians Kenny Jones, Paul Jordan and Martin Phillips visited the country this month, meeting with Jaroslaw Rotary President Piotr Balicki along with other Rotarians from the Polish club.

Jaroslaw Rotary is the nearest Polish rotary club to Ukraine, with the town situated approximately 40 km from the Polish/Ukrainian border. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the Polish club has been deeply engaged in helping Ukrainian refugees providing food, clothing and medical aid to those arriving in Poland fleeing the war zone in their home country.

Following the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, like many rotary clubs around the world, Abergavenny Rotary were quick to offer their support to the people of Ukraine with club president Robert Parker writing a letter of support to all 62 rotary clubs in Ukraine.

Looking for further ways to help, Abergavenny Rotary then used the global Rotary Finder app to locate Jaroslaw Rotary and reach out offering assistance with donations and aid.

In April the Chronicle reported on Abergavenny Rotary Club holding a number of street collections in the town in April fundraising for the people of Ukraine.

Having raised £2,500 they then donated the money to the Polish Club and most of this money was used to provide medical aid to the citizens of the Cherkasy community, a city the size of Cardiff some 200 kilometres to the southeast of Kiev on the Dnipro river.

Monies were also used to provide food and clothing at a railway station close to the Polish/Ukraine Border where the Ukrainian refugees first arrived in Poland.

Close contact between the two rotary clubs has now been established and on Friday June 17 members of the Abergavenny Club flew from Bristol to Rzeszow airport near Jaroslaw, on a self-funded trip to spend a long weekend with members of the Jaroslaw Rotary Club on a fact-finding mission and to establish links with the Polish Club.

Free accommodation and hospitality for the visit was provided by Jaroslaw Rotary in a hotel owned by one of their members.

On their visit Kenny, Paul and Martin also met David Pufelski, who runs a refugee centre organising supplies for the Donbas region of Ukraine.

David has set up a food distribution system from Jaroslaw to the Donbas area and is housing refugees in a school building.

Martin Phillips said: “We visited the railway station at Przemysl, where one million refugees were sent in the first week, on trains all over Poland, there are still some there, but in smaller numbers and the food tents fed 40,000 people per day.”

Martin who is a professional videographer, will be making a video of this memorable visit. The Abergavenny Rotarians also visited the border town of Medyka, where Martin flew his drone over the border.

Since the initial fundraising efforts in March and April, another street collection event was held in May and a further £1,000 has been raised and Martin, Paul and Kenny presented a cheque to Piotr Balicki during their visit.

Following the visit, Jaroslaw Rotary Prewsident Piotr Balicki wrote to Abergavenny Rotary, saying: “We had a great time with Martin, Kenny and Paul. We went to most important places like Przemysl, Medyka’s Ukraine border and in the church where refugees stay, as had a meeting with 15 club members. We have to say a huge thank you for the money you have sent us, the time we spent together was awesome.’’

The visit proved such a success plans are now being made for members of the Polish Club to visit Abergavenny in August. Following their visit, Martin said: “On behalf of everyone from Abergavenny Rotary I would like to thank Piotr, David and all the Rotarians from Jaroslaw for their kind hospitality. It was wonderful to spend some time in your company and heart-warming to see the amazing work being done to help the people of Ukraine.’’ Rotary is continuing fundraising, visit https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/AbergavennyJaroslawRotary