THE season of goodwill to all men was put into practice when the Bolton Ukrainian Community handed over 15 large carrier bags and boxes of food to Urban Outreach to help the borough's most vulnerable people.

The essential foodstuffs were handed over during November, when Ukranians remember the Holodomor, a devastating man made famine that killed an estimated 10 million people between 1932-1933.

The collections and donation was in memory of the millions of Ukrainians who died as a result of Stalin's policy of collectivisation and determination to subdue the Ukrainian nation.

Yaroslaw Tymchyshyn, Chairman of the Bolton Branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain (AUGB) said: "The Bolton Ukrainian Community handed over 15 large carrier bags and boxes of food stuffs to Nigel from Bolton Urban Outreach.

"The collections and donation was in memory of the millions of Ukrainians who died.

"We also remember the kind and generous way the generation of Ukrainians who arrived in these shores after the second World War were received."

He added:"The AUGB branch in Bolton would like to thank everyone who contributed. If anyone."

The food will be distributed to people in Bolton facing hardship this Christmas.

A spokesman for Urban Outreach said: "It was a great privilege to meet the people of the Bolton Ukrainian Cultural Centre and receive such generous donations.

"Yaroslaw, the Chair of the Bolton Branch, told us that one of their members was born in this time and can still recall the horrific stories her grandmother shared.

"With this in mind they firmly believe no one should go hungry and pulled together this wonderful collection."

The term Holodomor derives from the Ukrainian words for hunger (holod) and extermination (mor), as aid was denied to people from the USSR. People were not allowed to search for food and anything edible was ransacked from homes by Communist officers.