NEWS FROM
LUTHERAN WORLD RELIEF
December 7, 2001
For more information contact Jonathan Frerichs at (410) 230-2802.
In this news release:
- Watch Gifts Go to Afghanistan Tomorrow
(And Notice Where the President is)
WATCH GIFTS GO TO AFGHANISTAN TOMORROW (AND NOTICE WHERE THE PRESIDENT IS)
Baltimore, December 7, 2001 -- Watch the news tomorrow night, the gifts-for-Afghanistan story, and you'll also see the Lutheran World Relief warehouse in New Windsor, Maryland.
The White House just announced that the President and Laura Bush will be visiting the warehouse on Saturday to watch as relief supplies purchased with donations from American children are prepared for shipment to Afghanistan. Handling the shipment is the American Red Cross, which uses the same Church of the Brethren warehouse facilities as LWR. The Bushes will see tents, jackets and gift boxes bought with the $1.5 million generated when the President asked school children to donate a dollar for the children of Afghanistan.
The same loading docks recently handled $452,000 worth of Afghanistan aid from Lutheran parishes. A shipment of 10,000 LWR quilts that left New Windsor early in the crisis is now in Iran headed for refugee camps in western Afghanistan. Nearly 19,000 more quilts just began their journey to Afghan refugees near Quetta, Pakistan.
This will be the first Presidential visit to the rural Maryland town of 1,300, although local rumor has it that a future President, Abraham Lincoln, once stopped there with his campaign train.
LWR has contracted for warehouse services from the Brethern Service Center in New Windsor for most of the 55 years both organizations have been in existence. LWR is also one of the founders and partners of the Center's Interchurch Medical Assistance program, which ships pharmaceuticals and medical supplies overseas.
And if the Bushes have some Christmas shopping to do they could step next door to visit SERRV, the home of the LWR Handcraft Project, to find fairly traded handcrafts made by low-income artisans in places like Pakistan.
