A GROUP of charity volunteers raised an incredible £50,000 to help desperate war affected people in Syria.

The volunteers from Slough 4 Syria also sent 109 pallets of food and 20 pallets of new clothing and blankets to Syria, the last of which left Slough last Wednesday.

The group had been campaigning throughout the Christmas period – using the Al Jannah Mosque in Stoke Road as a base.

Campaign manager Zak Haq was overwhelmed by the volume of support they received.

He said: “We had an amazing response.

“We exceeded the targets we originally set and we were completely overwhelmed with how much the people of Slough contributed.

“Even over Christmas, we had people at 10pm on Christmas Eve delivering food and clothing to us, some had to do more than one trip because they couldn’t fit any more in their car.

“Even the foodbank donated food to us, which was a really kind gesture.”

The pallets of food and clothing will arrive in Turkey by truck before being taken to an area approximately 50 miles outside of Aleppo where they will be handed out to people who have fled the city.

The money raised itself will be donated to the charity Hand in Hand for Syria, who take medical and humanitarian aid into the country.

Mr Haq said the total could reach £68,000 by the time all online donations come in.

He said: “We don’t want to lose momentum now, we have to keep going and think about what we can do next.

“The bigger picture is we don’t want to just focus all our efforts into one place, we want to help out everywhere we can.

“There are a lot of problems all over the world, even in Slough and we want to use our campaigning to help wherever it’s possible for us to do so.”

“A massive thank you to everyone.

“We were overwhelmed by the support.”

To donate visit slough4syria.co.uk