Trucks full of Dutch donations headed to Calais refugee camp

Later this week trucks full of tents, blankets, sustainable food, clothes and shoes will be heading to The Jungle refugee camp in Calais and France. These items were collected by Doneer Je Deken, Donate Your Blanket in English, over the past few months at a number of events, including on the festival grounds of Lowlands and Mysteryland, NOS reports. The initiative has received between 400 and 500 cubic meters of donations. "We really got much more than we expected", Tom Pieper, one of the organizers, said to the broadcaster. The mountain of items is currently being sorted in a hall in Etten-Leur. The first trucks are leaving Etten-Leur for Calais at 4:00 a.m. on Friday morning. There the donations will be handed to refugee organization L'auberge des migrants, who will distribute it to the refugees in the shelters. Due to the great success of the initiative, the collection had to be stopped early, because there is no room to store any more items. "Our goal has been achieved", Pieper said. "The foundation will continue to exist and it is obviously still an option to start collection again. In November we are talking with Lowlands director Eric van Eerdenburg about what we can do next year."