TWO mums touched by the desperate plight of Syrian refugees have been overwhelmed by the public’s generous responses after launching an aid appeal last week.

Emily Doyle got the ball rolling last week by setting up a Haslemere site for a nationwide online petition by UK campaign group 38 Degrees, calling for Britain to take in more refugees.

After 76 people from her target petition figure of 100 signed up in just 24 hours to say refugees were welcome in Haslemere, Emily wanted to do more to help the Syrians forced to flee their homeland by the four-year-old conflict, by providing practical support.

When her friend Claire Smith said she was thinking along the same lines they hit upon the idea of launching a charity appeal to fill backpacks with vital supplies for babies and children and send them out to the refugee families are arriving daily in Kos.

Last Friday night, after they had put their children to bed, the two friends launched ‘Bag of Hope’ campaign via a Facebook page called Haslemere Gift of Hope – and were immediately inundated with offers of support.

“The sheer volume of support was unbelievable,” Emily said. “We had hundreds of responses within hours from individuals, schools and organisations. We are now in conversation with large international organisations so we can combine our consignment with others and we are also asking for financial donations to pay shipping costs and a shipping container.

“Neither of us has ever done anything like this. I’m a professional photographer and have expertise in marketing and well-wishers are offering their skills. I met Claire six months ago when I took her family portrait and we kept in touch.

“We just hoped some mums in Haslemere would get behind us. We didn’t have grand ambitions and we never expected Bag of Hope to get such a big response. It just shows everyone is desperate to help. We wanted to do something physical and we have received an incredible outpouring of support. It’s a lovely thing to be involved in.”

Bag of Hope asks for donations for individual backpacks for refugee children of winter clothes, shoes, a toy and book, and a toothbrush and toothpaste.

For the baby backpack they are asking for winter clothes, a blanket or grobag, a toy, a teether, a picture book, dummies, nappy cream, wipes, and a clean bottle or beaker.

Offers of drop-off points are also flooding in and are listed on Facebook.

The deadline for donations is Saturday, September 26, so bags can be sorted and packed ready for delivery in early or mid-October. Little Sprouts in Grayshott is providing a drop-in room where people can help put bags together from separate donations.

Responding to the Prime Minister’s announcement this week that Britain will take 20,000 refugees in response to the crisis, Waverley Borough Council leader Robert Knowles said: “Waverley will work with the Government to implement the resettlement policy. Next week we should have more clarity from the Home Secretary as to how the policy will be implemented over the next five years.”

Chichester District Council also said it would co-operate fully with the Government’s plans when they are set out as promised in more detail.

“Our housing department is already identifying how many vacant units may be made available in the council’s own accommodation for the homeless, but these are likely to be strictly limited,” Leader Tony Dignum said. “Many bed and breakfast establishments within the district are not prepared to accept homeless families and it is likely to be the same with asylum seekers.

“We have already been approached by members of the public offering to provide a room or two in their homes for asylum seekers. We welcome these offers and they will all be followed up when we are advised of those refugees wishing to come to the district.

“Those offering rooms need to be aware of the challenges they may face and that they may need safeguarding checks. The refugees may have suffered severe trauma and may require intensive emotional and medical support. Council officers will do all they can to help settle the refugees happily in their hosts’ homes.”

Haslemere has a proud tradition of helping refugees. In 1934, a “German-English School”, as it was first known, was founded by Dr Hilde Lion, a Jewish academic who had left Germany following Hitler’s rise to power.

With the help of Bertha Bracey, general secretary of the German Emergency Committee of the Society of Friends, Dr Lion and her colleagues established the school at Stoatley Rough. The house, built by Arthur Leon, had been offered to the Quakers by his daughter Marjorie Vernon.

Initially the school catered mainly for Jewish children escaping Nazi persecution, and its first pupils were two small refugee boys and five older refugee girls. The separation of brothers from sisters was considered detrimental and so, by force of circumstances, the school operated as a co-educational establishment with a full age range.

In March 1938, the school received an influx of refugee children from Austria following that country’s annexation. By 1939, pupil numbers had risen to 81 and, at the outbreak of war, there were 90 students, of whom 50 had left parents behind in Germany. A former pupil, Wolfgang Elston, described the school as “an island of sanity where children could go through all of the stresses of growing up in safety and security”.