Today was GoodGym Ealing's second visit to Care 4 Calais and we were again preparing clothing packages for refugees in the Heathrow area. It was Claire and Mohamed's first visit, so after a quick intro to the charity, the group were shown the storage system and the requested clothes for upcoming beneficiaries.

Each request was different with many having specific needs, so additions to the standard clothing packs had to be sourced and shortages in certain sizes had to be worked around. One person wanted size 15 shoes and another had "piano" on their list. Sevan had to double check that it was an actual piano being requested and not a code word for something else.

The task owner, Tamzin, knew more about the recipients, so stepped in when needed to add alternative clothes depending on need or to share that older people would want extra warm layers to help them through the winter. There were fewer parcels to prepare for women and children, so the GoodGymers didn't get to search through the bag of cute, children's hats too often. That was a treat saved for the group photo.

The team quickly burned through the pre-prepared clothing packs and had to create some more to keep up with demand. With all of the bags completed, the last job was to organise them by destination to make the task of the next set of volunteers easier when it comes to delivering them.