The Direct Assistance Program

On Friday, January 23^rd 1998, at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Vilnius, the Kiwanis Clubs of Lithuania and Kraft Jacobs Suchard Lietuva staged a benefit performance of Minkus’s classic ballet Don Quixote. As well as a chance for more than 1200 children invited by the Children’s Protection Agency to be thrilled by this memorable performance, the event also signaled the kick-off of the second year the Kiwanis Direct Assistance Program.

To open the memorable evening, an inspiring letter from retiring President Algirdas Brazauskas was read to the children who came from 51 of the 56 municipalities and districts from all throughout Lithuania. This was followed by the presentation of a $15,000 (60,000 Litas) check by KJS’s Managing Director, Gintaras Rimselis, to Kiwanis’s Country Coordinator, Audrius Sabas. Also attending this gala event were members of parliament and the government, foreign representatives, the heads of major food distributors and representatives of the NGO organizations working on behalf of Lithuania’s children.

Last year a similar benefit was held in which nearly a thousand disadvantaged children were treated to Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic, The Nutcracker; more than 40,000 litas was raised from local businesses – Hermis Bank, McDonalds, IKI Supermarkets, Arthur Andersen, The German Drugstore, DFDS Transport , among others - which was used to fund the first year’s Program. Food assistance packages for more than 100 children in the each of nation’s two prominent cities, Vilnius and Kaunas, were distributed each week by Kiwanis volunteers, as well providing vitamin and mineral supplements for these children and all of the dozens of children undergoing kidney dialysis treatment in Lithuania.

Demonstrating parent-company, Kraft Foods International’s long-term commitment to fighting hunger worldwide, KJS have joined the 1998 Direct Assistance Program with a substantial donation to pay for weekly food packages for children throughout the country. Additionally, KJS have elisted the help of their wholesale food trade partners who prepare the assortments and deliver them to distribution points throughout the country. Each week during the Winter months of January through April, more than five hundred children are receiving family-sized packages containing an average of eight litas (2 USD) per child of such staples as flour, porridges, cooking oil, fruits, vegetables, fish and meats in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipeda, Siauliai, Panevezys, Alytus, Marijampole, Ukmerge and several smaller villages.

It is hoped that this event will highlight the problem of hunger and undernourishment among many of the nation’s economically distressed children and this solution which unites a civic organization’s network of volunteers and knowledge with a corporate sponsor’s dedicated commitment to providing financial and logistical support to help solve it. Both Kiwanis and Kraft welcome food producers, businesses and others to join their efforts in supporting Lithuania’s disadvantaged children with tax-deductible donations of produce or grants.