A colleague of mine, Ian Jamieson, has been making humanitarian visits to the Ukraine. He came across an amazing small charity called Siobhan's Trust that cooks and delivers fresh pizzas to bombed out communities across the country.

It started in a feeding shelter in Poland, but now tries to provide respite and a bit of pleasure in Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and the Kharkiv regions. With winter fast approaching and increasing attacks on power supplies, I can only imagine that the arrival of a fitted-out pizza van delivering freshly baked pizzas provides a small uplift in morale for these communities.

I asked Ian how I could help, and he explained that they have plenty of ingredients due to an Italian charity, they have volunteers on the ground, but what they really need is another van to extend their reach and capability.

SO, I AM ASKING FOR YOUR HELP.

Please make a donation to Gazza’s Pizza Van for Ukraine. All donations will be passed on to Siobhan's Trust (via the St. James's Place Charitable Foundation) to purchasing an extra van, which after a quick fit out, will go straight to the front line and be delivering pizzas hopefully in time for Christmas.

I am aware that we are all facing challenges at the moment and there are many competing requests for your help. This is my first attempt at being a fundraiser, as against a donor, and it would mean a lot to me if we could get this van for this charity.

I will do all I can to try and get the first names of all the donors somehow incorporated into the paintwork of the van so a little bit of you will be there and the people of Ukraine can see they are not alone.

Thanks for taking time out to read this far.

Love and Peace.

Ian Gascoigne