A HILLESLEY mother is appealing for donations of underwear for young adults in Romania.

Jacqui Moore has launched an appeal with her 11-year-old daughter Ella, called Knickers to Need.

They are asking for donations of new underwear, socks and vests which will be sent to a Romanian home for young adults in desperate need of such basic items.

The Ionaseni home is in the north of Romania, close to the Russian border in Moldovia.

Mrs Moore visited the home, then an orphanage, 20 years ago as a volunteer nurse.

"I spent a year at a home for 70 children who all had been classed as having some form of disability," she said.

"The conditions were as appalling as was widely reported at the time."

At the time the Gazette followed Mrs Moore’s story, publishing letter updates and passing on readers’ donations.

Mrs Moore, 45, subsequently lost touch with the home, but has spent many years trying to find out the fate of the orphanage.

"I’ve always wondered what happened," she said. Mrs Moore tracked down another volunteer through Facebook who was still in touch with the home. Linda Sorley, who lives in Wales, regularly visits and is the only outside help the home now gets.

Ionaseni no longer houses children but is home to over 80 young adults, in desperately poor conditions with very limited resources.

The Knickers to Need appeal hopes to send adult men’s and women’s socks, underwear, vests and non-underwired bras with Ms Sorley straight to the home.

Mrs Moore said: "If you saw the conditions they lived in, you would want to get involved.

"Especially at Christmas - we’ve all got so much and there they don’t even have a pair of socks."

There are collection boxes at Wotton Farm shop and Mrs Moore’s home in Hillesley, Box Tree Cottage.