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15

Nov 2022

Last Updated: 15/11/2022
Community
Community

Knaresborough couple deliver Christmas toys for children in Ukraine

by Vicky Carr

| 15 Nov, 2022
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Retired lorry driver Bob Frendt, who has taken five truckloads of aid to the country since Russia invaded in February, decided in the summer to collect gifts to deliver in time for Christmas.

bob-frendt-toys

Children across Ukraine will have presents to open this Christmas thanks to the hard work of a Knaresborough couple.

Retired lorry driver Bob Frendt, who has taken five truckloads of aid to the country since Russia invaded in February, decided in the summer to collect gifts to deliver in time for Christmas.

After appealing for help through the Stray Ferret, he received numerous donations — including a generous £30,000 of toys from one anonymous benefactor. He even had to attach a trailer to his lorry to enable him to take the medical supplies he had been given by Medequip and Andway.

Mr Frendt's wife Maureen travelled with him this time and the couple set off on Thursday, November 3.

However, their plans to hand everything over at the Polish border, as he has done on most of his previous trips, went awry. Mr Frendt said:

"I could write a 13-part series about this trip. If it could go wrong, it did.
"We actually had to go into Ukraine. We got a message on the Friday night that the guys couldn't get out of Ukraine because there was an embargo on civilians aged 16 to 70 leaving.
"We were 30 miles from the border and it's a case of, what do you do? I wasn't going to turn round and bring it all back.
"Maureen wasn't too happy about it, but it is reasonably safe to cross the border there, so that's what we did."


Travelling into Ukraine for only the second time allowed him to see where the medical donations would be used, in the hospital in the city of Volodymir-Volynskyi, just over the border.

The couple were also delighted to hand over the 5,000 toys ready to be distributed to children around the country, including in Kyiv, Lviv and Kherson.



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Mr Frendt was also able to present a painting of Knaresborough to a journalist he met during his last visit, who wrote about his efforts in the local paper. He also met one of the 'activists' fighting the Russians, Constantine, who expressed his gratitude for all the couple's efforts. Mr Frendt said:

"Constantine said to us, 'when this is over, you and your wife must come back as our guests and stay for a week and we'll show you the lakes'.
"He said if we come back, they'll make me president of Volodymir-Volynskyi and Maureen would be first lady!"


Returning to Poland, the couple met friends who put them up in a hotel for the night and took them out for dinner to thank them for what they had done.

Bob and Maureen FrendtBob and Maureen Frendt

They made it back to Knaresborough at the weekend and Mr Frendt is already planning his next trip - though not until the spring, when the weather improves and he has had a break over the winter.

He hopes to set up a family disco fundraiser to help him buy more medical equipment, alongside the donations of kit he regularly receives from companies like Andway and Medequip. He hopes to put on a raffle and it appealing for donations of prizes from local businesses.

He wants to take out defibrillators, hospital armchairs, ultrasound machines and surgical equipment, as well as the tools to maintain them. To do that, he needs more donations from the public – everything from cash to raffle prizes to tools.

He said:

"It feels like this trip was years of planning. I haven't got an organisation behind me - all there is is me and Maureen and that's it.
"It's hard graft, going round and asking people if they can help. But I've just got to do what I can.
"The people over there have no food. They're going to the river and filling up cans for water. The hospitals are desperate.
"It's so difficult for us to appreciate and understand what having nothing really is."


To support Mr Frendt's efforts for Ukraine, or to make a donation, click here to email him.