Mission completed in British charity effort

VILNIUS - Eight British volunteers participating in the framework of the program ‘Mission Impossible,’ of the British charity World Jewish Relief, delivered aid to Jewish communities in the Baltics that have been severely affected by the recession, reports news agency LETA. It took them five days and nights, in four hotels through three countries, to deliver two vans from London to the Jews of Latvia and Lithuania.

In the past two years, ‘Mission Impossible’ has sent 10 million dollars from volunteers and World Jewish Relief to needy Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The goods included warm clothes and bedding, footwear, personal care and Judaica.
The volunteers, mostly in their 40s and 50s who took a week off from work for the recent mission to the Lithuanian capital Vilnius and the Latvian capital Riga, collectively raised nearly 60,000 dollars themselves to purchase the vans, complete with spare parts and costs such as servicing, fuel, insurance and drivers’ salaries. They also filled the vans with gifts from Great Britain.

The vehicles will be used for doctor and hospital visits, community center visits for the elderly and infirm, and bringing meals directly to people’s homes. The volunteers presented the first van to the Vilnius Jewish community center, which held a music concert for the visitors. Simon Gurevich, who heads the JCC - the lifeblood of the city’s 5,000 Jews - said the JCC used to bring elderly and infirm to the center in a rented minivan.

“Now that we have our own vehicle, we’ll be able to bring these people to the community center not just once a week, but twice or more. Moreover, we are going to travel to other towns in Lithuania, which means this van is not just going to bring Jews to the community, but to bring Jewish culture to many people who live far from Vilnus,” he said.
Gurevich told how an elderly man who came to the center was so touched by the volunteers that he wanted to present them with a picture of Vilnus he had at home. “He said, ‘You are in our hearts, and I want you to have us in your hearts, too’,” Gurevich related.

He said that the recession has hit Lithuania hard, with the number of young families in need of help from the community increasing by 42 percent over last year. “Many have lost their jobs; others have experienced salary cuts,” he said. “Pensions have been cut by 20 percent. If things don’t improve by next year and the community has the same amount of people to feed, help with medications, etc., our budget is going to have a 100,000 dollar deficit. Now that we have the van and we can save the money it took to rent it, we’ll be able to feed two, three, even five more people. This doesn’t sound extraordinary, but it is extraordinary for those two or three people.”

Since 2003, ‘Mission Impossible’ has raised more than 430,000 dollars, with each volunteer raising up to 7,200 dollars to cover the purchase of the vans, as well as each contributing to the cost of the trip.