Shoppers at Leamington supermarket donate clothing and toys to Afghan refugee families

Staff at a Leamington supermarket were inundated with donations of toys and clothing for Afghan refugee families after they launched an online appeal.

Shoppers brought the donations to Morrisons in Old Warwick Road and they will be passed on to the Carriers of Hope charity to support the refugees and the British Red Cross.

Volunteers and members of Warwickshire Search and Rescue helped to move and deliver the items to the good causes

Organiser Alexandra Pearson, who is the community champion for the Leamington store, said: "Seeing the news on how people had no choice but to think life or death - to leave everything behind and just start again is just heart breaking.

"It showed me how lucky I am.

"What I did turned into a very overwhelming experience which saw people travel far to come to our store to donate clothes.

"When I put up the post on my community page I thought I would only get a few items of clothes but I was so wrong.

"The post was shared more than 400 times and we was tagged into many posts to let people know Morrisons were accepting donations.

"Hearing that people came from 40 mins away just to drop off some toys or to see people adding kettles to their shopping so they could donate was just amazing.

"The support from the community was amazing, I had four people take car loads of donations to Coventry and Warwickshire Search and Rescue again supporting us with taking the donations to where they needed to go.

"In my eyes a disaster made our community come together."