Once the war in Ukraine began Boxers Barbers Led by Steve Parker started to organise its Ukraine appeal, The barbers shop quickly became a hub and drop off point for the donations needed to take to Ukraine.
Starting with Steve and some of his friends who were all ex military, Dan Gausden, Andy Rae, Nick Austin and Matt Nice, a plan was formulated to take some vehicles and loads of humanitarian aid direct to Ukraine.
Steve then went on LBC Radio with Nick Ferarri to raise awareness of his cause and to reach a wider audience. Raising thousands of pounds, tonnes of aid and gaining new volunteers such as Sarah Hood from the fox and hounds pub in Ramsden, David Dtubberfield, Myles lant along with Rob Drumgold and Karl von Buren (now independant using the 4 ukraine name) a huge team then assembled all based from the humble Barber shop in Wickford Essex.
The first trip on 7th March 2022 consisted of the following volunteers pledging their time and dedication to Boxers barbers Ukraine appeal.
- Steve Parker
- Dan Gausden
- Sarah Hood
- Andy Rae
- David Stubberdfield
- Sam Field
- Sean Southgate
- Matt Nice
- Nick Austin
- Luke Joyner
- Zoe Mills
- Colin Norton
- Phil Moody
- Terry Sheridan
- Clint Walton
- Charlie Aldrey
- Phil Brown
- Myles Lant
- Tony Moss
- Aleksandr Gayda
- Dave Gayda.
- Rob Drumgold
- Karl Von Buren
After Numerous trips and sending Aid to Ukraine throughout March, and April, we then collectively decided in May 2022 to update our group logo and include 4 Ukraine as our name. May, June, July and August our Team Continued to collect aid and delivering vehicles such as 4 x 4 trucks, some purchased by our collective contacts, loaded with humanitarian aid to Poland and in some cases just over the Ukraine border to Lviv or Khyriv, where they were then delivered to further into Ukraine on our behalf.
In September we decided to revamp once again as the fundraising part of out team was inactive and a couple of our members decided to go it alone using our name. We needed a New Logo, a new approach with new ideas, and a new website kindly donated by one of our members Rob Carter.
Unfortunately some members from our original team decided to take our name, along with a couple of our members and a lot of our joint contacts to create their own group of 4 Ukraine. Mainly delivering Vehicles purchased for them to Poland. Whilst this was unnecassary we do wish them good luck.
Steve Parker, Dan Gausden Terry Fallows then took control back of the original group and its fundraising, and began our tough Journey of building more relationships to enable us to Deliver aid Directly to organisations in Ukraine.
Since November we have bought our own Vehicles and been very active in taking much needed Aid to places in Ukraine such as …
- Kyiv
- Borodyanka
- Truskavets
- Korosten
- Turnopil
- Malyn
Working with Charities, Refugee centres, Orphanages our continued efforts are helping the people of Ukraine to rebuild their lives.