Thank you kind readers! Your donations to the Guardian and Observer refugee charity appeal have now passed the £400,000 mark!
All the signs are that this will be one of the most successful Guardian charity appeals yet. In less than a fortnight since the start of the 2015 appeal you have donated almost as much as was raised during the entire 2014 appeal campaign.
A special thanks also to the Guardian Bookshop, which is generously donating 20p from each book sold during the We Stand Together appeal. After just over a week this has already added £2,500 to appeal coffers, so do consider using the Guardian bookshop if you are buying books online in the run-up to Christmas.
From the moving and heartfelt messages readers have left us after donating online it’s clear that the We Stand Together appeal continues to strike a powerful chord with readers of all ages.
This is from Alastair Galloway:
My 7-year-old daughter chose to give her £6.50 of charity money left this year after Children in Need, etc to refugees because ‘I don’t like people dying and drowning.’
We Stand Together has touched readers across the globe. Catherine Langford emailed us from New Zealand to say:
I don’t earn much ... but I have a home. I have my son, my partner – they are reading in our big comfy bed as I weep quietly and secretly donate some of the few pounds left. I am so lucky. But for how long? I donate what I can afford for those people in this story and for humanity as a whole; for dignity, for love, out of fear that it might be my son one day.
Many of you were moved to donate by reports you have read in the Guardian, such as Suzanne Moore’s compelling account of her visit to the camps in Calais, where one of our appeal charities, Doctors of The World, runs emergency health services.
This, from Glenda Stansbury:
I am not a political activist, I am not a leader or member of any group or someone who has strong views on any particular direction. I am however human. I read the article by Suzanne Moore on the charity aiming to get medical aid into the French camps, Doctors of the World. I am moved to tears, this camp is ... one hour away from our shores, this is a different world ... I will be supporting this charity [appeal] … today.
Many donors said supporting the appeal was a necessary expression of their liberal values; they said they felt a clear moral, political and humanitarian imperative to help.
Ian and Eileen Martin wrote:
It [We Stand Together] goes to the heart of who we are, what we stand for. It is a charity appeal but it is also a loud political statement. We help one another or we perish.
Rafiq Ahmed emailed to say:
A big thank you to all at the Guardian, responsible for organising this marvellous gesture. Humanity is alive and kicking.
Meanwhile, look out for a stunning piece on the “hidden frontline” of the refugee crisis in Slovenia (and the crucial work of one of our appeal charities, Red Cross), by the Guardian’s award-winning migration correspondent, Patrick Kingsley.
You can read more about our six refugee appeal charities here, and you can donate online here.
