'This is all about unity' - Communities rally to gather aid for people in Ukraine

Joanna Arcaba-Tomasik and her husband Frankie at the Ballycureen Industrial Estate in Cork packing up medical supplies and essential items which have been donated to the My Cork Polish Association and the Polish Scouts to be shipped to the Poland/Ukraine border. Photo: Dan Linehan

Communities across Ireland have mobilised on a massive scale to help the people of Ukraine with one of the first convoys of humanitarian aid due to ship out from Cork on Tuesday.

Members of the Polish community in Munster, many with links to the Irish scouting movement, hope to dispatch over a dozen carloads of sleeping bags, thermal blankets, hot food flasks, and medical and sanitary supplies from a warehouse at the Ballycurreen Industrial Estate in Cork to Gorajec on the Poland/Ukraine border, where thousands of refugees have crossed from the Ukrainian city of Lviv since the Russian invasion began last week.