As public donations to Irish Kosovo appeals edge over the £1 million mark, one aid agency has taken to the streets in search of additional support in the form of canned fruit, nappies and anything else it can prise off Dublin city shoppers. "People are so generous," said Ms Edel Barton, a volunteer collector with Irish Bosnia Aid.
While she spoke, passers-by discreetly placed parcels in a freight container behind her in Grafton Street: a teenager producing two cans of baked beans and some tinned pears from her carrier bag, a young couple taking a large box of milk powder from under the feet of their baby in a pram.
"We've even had a man who was sleeping rough in a doorway in front of us who emptied his pockets and gave us about a fiver," said Ms Barton, who launched the campaign with her mother and daughter with a one-day collection at a supermarket in Walkinstown.
The container is one of two in the city which Irish Bosnia Aid hopes to fill by 6 p.m. today, before shipping them directly to refugee camps on the Kosovo border.
Trocaire has raised more than £350,000 under its Kosovo appeal, which will fund projects run by Catholic Relief Services in Macedonia and Karitas in Albania.
The Share collection at all Masses in the Dublin Archdiocese tomorrow will be devoted to the Trocaire campaign.
Concern has raised more than £193,000 in the Republic as well as tens of thousands of pounds in the UK, where it is one of 12 charities in the Disasters Emergency Committee, which has collected £7 million.
Goal's total yesterday was £185,000, with £25,000ú30,000 coming in each day.
The Irish Red Cross Society has raised an estimated £150,000 since the crisis started.
Unicef Ireland had collected £142,000 by yesterday.
Father Norman Fitzgerald of the Irish Refugee Trust has raised about ú80,000.
