Former deputy headmistress Eileen Clare may be 82 but, at the age others put their feet up, she is spearheading an aid mission to the poverty-stricken Ukraine.

Miss Clare and fellow worshippers at St Mary's RC Church in Bradford's East Parade are collecting aid to be ferried on a Convoy of Hope to a part of the country devastated by recent flooding.

Links between the church community and the struggling district were strengthened last year when she visited the region to deliver aid.

Now the church has enlisted the West Riding Rotary clubs to help and, thanks to them, there will be a lorry, trailer, and minibuses going in convoy next month to take much-needed supplies.

The St Mary's Church helpers have established contacts in the town of Zinograd in the Tisza Valley in the south of the Ukraine.

The already poverty-hit region has been further devastated by flooding, which has ruined farmland and left 80 per cent of the people jobless.

"I was so shocked when I saw the scale of the poverty out there," said Miss Clare, who used to be deputy headteacher of what is now Yorkshire Martyrs School in Bradford.

"The immediate need was for food, and a convoy went out in April, 2000. We have helped to establish a food centre in an empty bakery - they feed needy people and sell the surplus to hotels. A chicken farm has also been started which provides eggs and meat.

"The next project we are supporting is to set up a factory which makes a sort of powder needed to make breeze building blocks.

"We have also received some donated bicycles from Centerparcs. These are much better for getting about on - it will help people distribute the food. They can't afford petrol, as there is 80 per cent unemployment."

Members of St Mary's Church are currently collecting donations of dried food such as pasta, rice and flour for the Convoy of Hope, which leaves on April 12.

Father Michael Sullivan of St Mary's said: "We are asking our 600 members to have a simple meal on a Friday and spend what they would have spent on donations of dried food. What we are looking at is practical aid."

He added: "Miss Clare is absolutely phenomenal - she drives me. She has the organisation and the contacts."

l To find out how to contribute to the aid mission, call St Mary's on 721248.