Stevie and Mark’s Dnipro Appeal Diaries - Part 2 - The Collection

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Part 2 - The Collection

15th September

The day of the home leg. Everything is in place for the turnstile collection and thanks to the Evening News, Radio Forth, HibsNet and the Hibees Bounce, most supporters are aware of the collection and the Dnipro Appeal. All the pushing on the websites pays off as 20 volunteers commit themselves to helping out. Possibly not realising at the time but these 20 volunteers are going to end up collecting the vast majority of the funds and making a huge impact on the lives of many, many children. For this reason alone I think they all deserve a personal mention, so a special thanks to Babs McDonald, Jillian Sinclair, Pamela Cullen, Louise Carolan, Diane Laird, Nikki Oldroyd, Mike Saddler, David and Michael Blackburn, Gibby Newton, Nick and Brian Dishon, David Campbell, Scott Smith, Gary Mitchell, James McCurdie, Tam Gaynor, Barry Wood, Colin Dudgeon and of course Mark Strachan.
The collection goes very well and after the game there is a huge feeling of relief that it all came together.

Hibs draw 0-0 with Dnipro.

16th September

The day after the collection Babs, Louise and Myself meet up with Mark at his house to count up. After a couple of hours of counting we discover that the turnstile collection managed to raise an amazing £2,154!! We head off to the bank to change the coins into notes and our thoughts turn towards how best to spend the funds. I send an email off to Mike in Dnepropetrovsk telling him of the funds available and ask him to give us a list of the things most needed.

17th September

Mikes reply tells us that the things most needed are trainers, winter boots, winter coats, bed sheets and medical equipment. He also tells us that the pregnancy crisis centre and the baby hospital would benefit greatly from nappies, shampoos, soaps and baby food. Mark and myself start to compile a list of items and closely liase with Mike as to how the funds could be best used.

18th September

I get a call from Hibernian telling me to nip in to the club shop to see Richard Alexander. Richard supplies us with 30 Children’s Hibs t-shirts and a similar quantity of bags to take over with us.

19th – 26th September

Over the next week time is spent sorting through various donations and also purchasing items to take over with us. Mark does the majority of the work during this period with numerous trips to sports outlets for trainers and boots as well as a number of trips into Edinburgh to collect bags of donations. Special mentions go to Sports World in Livingston for sourcing the Kids Hibs Shirts, assisting in the collating of the shoes, boots, hats and relating equipment and the 10% discount offered on all purchases. Sean Allan, Kenny Murphy and Gary ‘Stretch’ Mitchell contact Lees, manufacturers of such luxuries as Tablet, Macaroon and Fudge and Barrs, Suppliers of Scotland’s other National Drink, Irn Bru, who both provide generous donations of their products to give to the kids. Thanks go to Stretch and Mike ‘Rude Boy’ Craig for collecting a lot of the gear and dropping in to Mark. The club kindly donate an autographed Hibs top for auction and we also have an autographed programme and team sheet from the Rangers 0-3 game donated. These two auctions manage to bring in a whopping £370 and special thanks go to Vinnie, Moray, Billy and Stuart for their generous donations.

Mark also speaks with ITA travel to ensure that donations can be taken over and ITA are very helpful in organising this. The money is converted to US Dollars and passed to ITA, again for collection ‘on the other side’. On Friday the 23rd I spend a whole day driving round Edinburgh collecting donations from about a dozen locations before heading out to Mark’s and dropping everything off. We discuss how things are progressing and finalise plans for the trip the following week. A final pack of the bags ensures the majority of the donations and gifts ready to roll by close of play on Sunday 25th September. It is round about this point that it sinks in and Stevie and I realise that we really have created a monster here. The day before we fly out we Mark and myself tally up all the financial donations. These figures included the turnstile collection, donations via the links on both the Hibees Bounce and Hibs.Net websites as well as numerous personal donations and the auctions. Unbelievably, given the short time in which we have been collecting, the final total comes to £3,700!!