March 2022
Brighton Swimming School staff and volunteers have collected three tons of emergency aid for Ukraine since Russia invasion. We have sent supplies directly to Ukraine’s border with Poland as well as weekly truck-loads to a Polish community centre in London to send on to refugees entering eastern Poland. Paul Smith, the Brighton Swimming Centre owner, said: “I was immediately shocked and sickened by the suffering and felt I had to do something so along with the centre’s manager, Jade Gurr, and our office team we developed a plan.”
Jade Gurr, centre's manager said: “It has been amazing. Almost immediately parents were bringing everything from crayons and colouring books to winter coats, the generosity has been overwhelming – and even the children have been helping sort the aid.”
Brighton Swimming School’s large group volunteers has been helping with the huge job of sorting the supplies and packing it into boxes. Sorting into boxes has been a huge task and we are so very grateful to everyone who has helped us.

Paul Smith and Kate Lancaster were going for a Sunday morning dip off Brighton beach when they spotted the Walkers crisp bag on the pebbles just below Royal Crescent. The cheese and onion packet was still intact, despite showing an expiry date of October 1996. Swimmers described the find as “incredible” but worrying. Brighton Swimming Centre Owner says: 

“It’s incredible someone in their teenage years could have thrown this in the sea. They’d be in their forties now, what it shows is rubbish doesn’t just go away, there’s a good chance it will outlive you.”