Indies raise over £75k for Ukrainian children in Packed With Hope appeal

A campaign spearheaded by indie publishers Gracie Cooper of Little Toller and Kevin Duffy of Bluemoose has raised more than £75,000 to aid Ukrainians fleeing Russian violence, following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The crowdfunder has surpassed its target and by 11th April stood at more than £79,000, with one day left to go to drum up final donations.

Packed With Hope has also sorted £1m worth of donations into 10,000 backpacks for Ukrainian children. On 9th April, 250 volunteers aged between six and 94 packed the bags with books, scarves, hats, sweets, colouring books and water bottles.

"It is incredible, it shows to me the very best of humanity," said Cooper, publisher at Little Toller. "I am totally overwhelmed."

The first lorry delivering food was expected to leave the UK at the start of this week, with the others due to leave by 15th April.

Cooper and Duffy will be flying to Romania on 18th April to distribute the backpacks on the Ukrainian-Romanian border, alongside 250 volunteers.

More than 40,000 books have been donated by publishers in the UK including Bloomsbury, Hachette and Graffeg, while 10,000 dual-language books have been printed by a major US corporation too.

"If it makes one child smile, feel a little bit better, then I feel I have achieved something," Cooper added. 

Elsewhere in the publishing industry, marketing agency Kids Industries has partnered with an illustration company to donate a book about expressing emotions to Ukrainian refugee children.

Laura Helen Brown, founder of LHB Illustrations and creator of the My Emotions Activity Book, will be overseeing the printing over the book through Doxdirect.com, and aims to deliver copies to 3,750,000 displaced children. Doxdirect will be printing and posting orders of the Ukrainian-language version of the printed booklet from the UK and Krakow for free, while Kids Industries will be financing the translation. 

The book was originally penned during lockdown for Brown’s nephew, who was struggling with anxiety, and was launched as a free printable resource in March 2021. It features facts about animals and watercolour illustrations, and is designed to generate conversations with children about their feelings and wellbeing.

"It’s critical to recognise and support children’s mental health and wellbeing, especially for those fleeing Ukraine," Brown said. "Leaving their homes, families and friends in very difficult circumstances presents children with a number of worries and coping with such uncertainty and anxiety is incredibly tough – let alone adapting to new environments." 

Gary Pope, c.e.o. and co-founder at Kids Industries and children’s commissioner for Products of Change, commented: “As a family focused marketing agency, we see it as our responsibility to support initiatives like Laura’s—where we can help make a difference to young people’s lives directly. Her book is beautifully illustrated and written in a way that children can relate to, helping to nurture their emotional literacy.

“We hope this can be a thoughtful way for children who have arrived in the UK and within Europe to access a resource to aid conversation as and when they are ready to do so. If you can help at all to get this resource to even more children, we would love to hear from you.”