United Methodists Responding to Refugee Needs

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 1-800-814-8765 for information about supplies currently needed.
   *Send a check to UMCOR International Disaster Response, Advance #333405, 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 1-800-554-8583.

May 26, 1999