LifeNets Container Leaves for Chernobyl
from Indianapolis, Indiana on February 16, 2004

February 16, 2004







 


 

After nearly a year's collecting and preparing, our container leaves for Chernobyl, Ukraine to help the "Revival" Rehabilitation Center for Disabled Children, a birthing hospital and a regional hospital. On Friday 28 volunteers came to help start load the container. On Sunday, the loading operation was completed with 42 coming to help with the project.

 

The container at Peine Engineering 

Routing of the Container:
February 17: left Indianapolis
February 25: Loaded on the ship Zim Virginia in New York City
February 29: Left Halifax, Nova Scotia
March 7: Left Barcelona, Spain
March 13: Left Haifa, Israel
March 20: Arrived Odessa, Ukraine
Arrived Chernobyl on April 4th

Volunteers came from

Most items were donated from nursing homes, FAME, Rotary, Clarion, Linus, Warren Ott, private individuals and many other sources who gave wheelchairs, bedding and more. Rotary Clubs and Rotary Foundation have given a tremendous amount of encouragement and support for our work in Chernobyl. Our special thanks to Tom and Rich Peine who have let us use their warehouse as a staging area for the tons and tons of items that needed to be inventoried and stored. Tom Peine has spent countless hours along with Crystal Lockhart making sure that everything has been properly inventoried and ready to go! Also, thanks to Cathy McClure for organizing all the volunteers to come and help load.  And to Sue Peine for help with the refreshments and all the great chili!


Rachel Roseberry

Finally, we thank the United States Department of State for funding the shipping through a program called "Operation Provide Hope" and Counterpart, particularly Rachel Roseberry who arranged the details from Washington D.C. and who walked us through the entire process of getting this job done.

Kudos to everyone who had a part in making this happen, but in particular we thank Tom Peine who took this project as his responsibility to organize and stage. Tom traveled to Flint, Michigan for a load of beds and also to near Kansas City, Missouri for another load. Without him, we could not have done what we did.  Thank you, Tom!

This container is dedicated to our friend Boris Kobzar in Ukraine who was our chauffer, friend and companion for countless hours while we visited in Ukraine. He loved the Center of Rehabilitation we work with and was an integral part of it. He died suddenly of a heart attack last month which greatly saddened us. 







 

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