wfn.org | United Methodists responding to refugee needs

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

May 26, 1999 News media contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-71B{296}

NOTE:  This report may be used as a sidebar to UMNS story #295.
	
By United Methodist News Service

United Methodists have responded overwhelmingly to a call for health kits to
distribute to Kosovar refugees.

"Right after Easter, people started to send them in," said Bob Osgood of the
United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) Depot at the Sager-Brown Center
in Baldwin, La.

So many kits have flooded the depot that volunteers have been unable to
process them all. On May 24, for example, 170 boxes of kits arrived by U.S.
Mail and another 80 came via United Parcel Service. Osgood estimated the
total number of kits received so far at 30,000 to 50,000.

UMCOR is receiving a donation of up to 5,000 blankets for Kosovar refugees
from Stewart Blankets, a small company in Greensboro, Md. Osgood said he
will soon dispatch a truck to pick up the first 500 blankets.

The company's owner, Harold Stewart, is a United Methodist who wanted to
respond to the crisis he saw unfolding on television and, with some help
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was directed to the National
Voluntary Organization Active in Disaster. That agency put a message out on
the Internet that Stewart was seeking groups willing to deliver donated
blankets to the refugees fleeing Kosovo.

 "Within 24 hours, we had requests (from relief organizations) for 63,500
blankets," he said. "Basically, we're shutting down our plant to make these
blankets."

Stewart is donating production and other costs but is looking for individual
and corporate donors to cover the expense of the blanket material, which is
$10 each.

Osgood believes Stewart is performing an important service, particularly
with regard to the conditions in which the refugees may be spending the
coming winter months. "I think the blanket issue is going to become critical
as this year unfolds," he said.

To respond to relief efforts for the continuing crisis in Kosovo, United
Methodists can:

*	Call the UMCOR Depot at (800) 814-8765 for information about
supplies currently needed.
*	Send a check to UMCOR International Disaster Response, Advance No.
982450-8, earmarked "Kosovo Emergency." Checks may be placed in church
collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR at 475 Riverside Drive, Room
330, New York, NY 10115.
*	Make a credit-card donation to UMCOR by calling (800) 554-8583.
*	Mail a donation to the "Cover Kosovo Project" of Stewart Blankets to
P.O. Box 766, Greensboro, Md. 21639. More information is available by
calling (703) 818-7437. 

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