• Submitted by: manso
• International
• 07 / 10 / 2011

---

Written by Gary McLendon. 10:30 PM, Jul. 8, 2011. In defiance of U.S. policy, dozens of local volunteers gathered in Pittsford on Friday to help transport more than three dozen boxes of medicine and medicalsupplies to Cuba in the 22nd annual Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan.

An estimated $2,500 worth of medicine, three motorized wheelchairs and other medical supplies from Rochester now join a caravan of donated shipments from 130 U.S. and Canadian cities headed for Cuba. The shipment is designed to ease the needs of Cubans affected by the U.S.economic embargo started in the early 1960s.

"We've been doing this because it feels like the right thing to do," said Henrietta Levine, 90, of Rochester, who with retired doctor Peter Mott of Pittsford helped organize the local donations as members of the Rochester Committee on Latin America. "This has gone on for years, and it is really a cruel and immoral thing that our government has kept this boycott in place, when Cuba does not threaten us at all," Levine said. "To make life better for people in any place seems to me a very important thing that any individual, group or country can do."

Mott also believes the roughly 50-year embargo on Cuba must stop. "I don't think there's been an embargo anywhere else in the world that has gone on for 50 years," said Mott. "This is just vicious. It's sort of a leftover from the old Cold War."

Helen Rice, a 100-year-old Irondequoit resident, said she financially contributed to the Rochester Committee on Latin America because "they do a lot of good work. I think it's a wonderful project."

The truck containing Rochester's humanitarian aid previously stopped in Syracuse and is slated to pick up more supplies in several other U.S. cities including Cleveland, Memphis, Little Rock, Dallas and Corpus Christi before crossing the
border into Mexico at McAllen, Texas.

Pastors for Peace spokesman Bill Packwell estimates 100 tons of humanitarian aid will cross the border on July 20 to challenge the U.S. restrictions on travel and trade with Cuba.

Supplies will be shipped by freighter to Cuba, where the Ecumenical Council of Churches will receive the shipment and help disperse the medicines and supplies throughout the country.

Volunteers said this year's effort has additional meaning because it's the first without the founder of Pastors for Peace, the Rev. Lucius Walker, who died last year.

Source: <http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110709/NEWS01/107090335/

Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/124923