A Go-Fund-Me page to buy a gift for a shopkeeper who has been subject to "awful racial" abuse over the weekend has been launched by two Falmouth residents.

As reported in the Packet over the weekend, Haidi Ocampo, 49 , from the Philippines closed up The Corner Shop on Saturday after she suffered "awful racist abuse" leaving her too upset to continue after a man buying tobacco was said to have racially abused her.

It is said it has recently become so bad she is thinking of packing it all in.

Nicki Sweeney and Nicola Congdon were so horrified by what had happened to Haidi that they set up a GoFundMe page to raised money to buy a gift or two for her.

On the GoFundMe page Nicki and Nicola say that Haidi is regularly subjected to racial abuse as she goes about her day serving customers in the shop. Recently, they say, the abuse has been so awful she has considered giving up her job.

Yet, they say Haidi does so much for the people of Falmouth, In true community spirit, she goes above and beyond to help those in need.

"Since she opened the shop," says Nicola "Haidi provides a hot meal for those struggling when she can throughout the year, such as on Christmas day when everything else is closed. She also will provide food and a hot drink to anyone who asks her and is starving if she is able to.

"All the food that is beyond its 'best before' date she donates to local food larders, such as the one at the Dracaena Centre, who provide it to those people who are in need. Her and her partner Bill often buy warm clothing for those living on the streets in winter from their own pockets and do a lot more to support the community around us."

She said both they and so many other people of Falmouth are "shocked and horrified" that Haidi is treated so badly by "a small minority of racists", and want to show her that she is welcome and she is loved by the town community.

"We would like to raise some money to buy Haidi a gift to show her that we appreciate all that she does for Falmouth and to show her that we stand by her.

"Please give what you can, no matter how small."

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Haidi has been running the shop with her partner or the past five years, after moving down from London.

Five months ago the Packet last reported on a series of similar incidents of racist abuse involving Haidi at the Corner Shop, over the Christmas period.

At the time Haidi said that the taunts made her "very sad", after she had full drinks bottles thrown at her shop window while she and customers were inside, and children banging their fists on her windows.

Worse still, she had children, some as young as 12, standing in her shop door shouting "Ha, ha you P*k*, even though she is Filipino. She said the incidents happened nearly every day over the Christmas holidays.