BALF‘o parama Lietuvai 1990-2008 metais

ENFounded in 1944 and based on U. S. Lithuanian principles of voluntarily extended help to the needy, the United Lithuanian Relief Fund of America, known as Balfas in Lithuanian, from 1990 onwards reoriented its charitable activities towards aiding not just emigrants in need but inhabitants of Lithuania as well. From 1990 to 2008 it raised and disbursed funds and goods in the amount of several million U. S. dollars. The main focus was on assisting former political prisoners and deportees with material goods, food items, medicines, and cash. To that end Balfas collected data about needy families, seniors, and orphans; and sent parcels and money to places where children and elderly people were taken care of, to youth camps, and to village libraries. Balfas paid particular attention to 43 Lithuanian schools in the eastern part of Lithuania. Before it closed, Balfas also sent parcels to Lithuanians in Poland (to about 2000 addresses) living in the so-called Suwalki Triangle; supported (to the tune of $300 a month) the Lithuanian February 16th Gymnasium in Germany until 1996; financially assisted the Lithuanian Church in maintaining eating places for poor people living in Vilnius and elsewhere in Lithuania; and supported new arrivals to the United States from Lithuania.The organization kept an eye on how the assistance it sent to Lithuania was being distributed there. The sums it collected for Lithuania proportionately increased until 2000 (reaching nearly $7.7 million), and began to decline thereafter. The reasons for this decline included the advancing age and growing health problems of Balfas’s volunteers; their difficulties in drawing younger people into their ranks; the decreasing amount of charitable donations; and the activities of other charitable societies. In addition, the material conditions of the inhabitants of Lithuania gradually changed for the better; thus the demand for used items of clothing and other used accessories decreased. It turned out that the helping hands of Balfas were especially valuable only during the first decade of Lithuania’s reestablished independence when almost everything was scarce; the larger part of Lithuania’s population lived in relative poverty; and the assistance of Balfas was for many of the latter one of the few available ways to eke out a minimally adequate living. [From the publication]