Ag Initiative/Humanitarian Seedlifts to Feed the Needy
[List of 1997 Recipient
Groups]
The Agricultural Initiative organized yearly distribution of donated US
vegetable and flower seeds (48 tons to over 40 cities in 1995 alone) to especially
needy segments of the Russian population (invalids, veterans, orphanages,
pensioners, schools, etc.).
In 1997, AgI staff distributed more than 8 tons of seed donated by the
Petoseed
and
Pan American Seed
companies to more than 300 nonprofit organizations serving the disadvantaged
in Russia. This year's shipment brings CCI's seedlift total (since 1992) to
more than 97 tons, without a single reported instance of resale
or misuse by the recipient groups.
The American companies listed below have played a vital role in helping
NIS citizens avoid hunger.
1997 Major Donors:
Pan
American Seed Company
Past Contributors:
W. Atlee Burpee & Co.
Asgrow Seed Company
Geo.
J. Ball, Inc.
Shepherd's Garden Seeds
Other Contributors Include:
- Federated Garden Clubs of Missouri
- Gurney's Seed Company
- Pinetree Garden Seeds
łThanks to your help, we were able to conserve considerable
resources that were used to restore ruined monasteries. Produce from the
Monastery's farm also supplies a soup kitchen from the needy, where more
than 600 people receive three meals a day."
Father Superior Grigory, Trinity-Sergiev Cathedral, Sergiev Posad.
łThe germination of, and harvests from these seeds exceeded
all our expectations. Even in this summer's unfavorable weather, when almost
no one in the Moscow area was able to grow cucumbers, cabbages, carrots
& onions, the invalids who planted American seeds collected a good harvest
of these crops not only from their garden plots, but also from their windowsills,
which is very timely support to their meager food allowances."
M. Lebedev, Ministry of Social Protection of the Russian Federation
Recipient Groups - CCI's 1997 Humanitarian Seedlift
St. Petersburg Recipients
(Detailed in a July 14 email from Oleg Moldakov, Project
Coordinator, CCI-St. Petersburg)
- Societies for Invalids: The "Consonance" Fund for Cultural-Enlightenment
Work among Invalids, the Society for Cooperation to Invalids, St. Petersburg
branches of the All-Russian Society of Invalids - Frunzenskiy, Moscovskiy,
Zelenogorskiy, Tsentralniy & Krasnogvardeiskiy regions.
- Societies for the Blind - The School for Vocational Rehabilitation
to the Visually Impaired, the Vasiliostrovski Branch of the All-Russian
Society for the Blind.
- Veterans' Groups - The Committee of the Leningrad War
Veterans Association; Council of Rocket Forces War Veterans; The Fund for
Social Assistance to Servicemen; War Veterans Clubs at the factories "Trubnikov
Bor," "Sinyavino," and "Izhorets" (over 800 families); Veterans Groups of
the Naval Academy, Petrogradskiy, Tsentralniy, Vybirgskiy, Moscovskiy, Pushkinskiy,
Vasiliostrovskiy, and Petrodvortsoviy regions, and cities Petergof and Lomonosov;
(others).
- Societies of Survivors of the Blockade of Leningrad -
the St. Petersburg Committee of the "Blockade Children-900," The Charitable
Society of Survivors of the Leningrad Blockade.
- Hospitals: Pokrovskaya hospital, Childrens Hospital #6,
City Hospital #21
- "Children-Ecology-Society" Association, Childrens Ecology
Center, Ecological Club "Klyukva" [Berry]
- Holy Trinity Cathedral and Monastery of the Alexander
Nevskiy Patriarchy, Christian-Baptist Association
- Agrarian University
- Unions and Associations of Private Farmers (14 listed)
- Center for Alternative Technologies - has 3.5 hectares
of their own land where 150 schoolkids work to produce crops for their sanitorium
and a tuberculosis hospital
- Gardening Societies - 13 listed, about 6,500 families
total membership.
- . Employment Training Centers:
- St. Petersburg City - for 100 people
- Kronshtadskiy Region - for 100 people
- Pushkinsky Center - for the Association "Multi-Children
Families" (about 450 families) and for 250 unemployed vegetable specialists;
- Admiralteiskiy Center - for 100 people
- Pavlovskoye Center - for 60 people and for the Pavlovsk
Social Protection Agency (for 900 people, including the Pavlovsk Societies
of Invalids, Victims of Repression, Multi-Children Single Mothers, and
War Veterans)
- Department of Social Protection of the Lodeinopolsky
region.
- Schools:
- Gardening School "Your Garden"
- Middle School #272
- School #241 of the Admiralteiskiy region
- Professional-Technical Lycee #21 of the city of Polessk
(Kaliningrad oblast)
- School of Landscaping at the Prinorskiy Victory Park
- Kindergarten #13
- Vavilov Research Institute, and the Gardening Club of
its Horticultural Institute
- Scientists Guilds - Gorkovo and the Academy of Scientists
- Scientific-Research Institutes - for the needy and veterans
on their staffs:
- Plant Protection Institute - for 120 families
- Economic Research Institute - for 140 families
- Institute of Hydrotechnics and Melioration - for
50 families
- Institute of Electrification and Mechanization of
Agriculture - for 320 families
- Institute of Microbiology - for 180 families
- Agrophysical Institute - for 70 families
- Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat Institute -for 360 families
- Arctic Research Institute - for 20 families
- Academy of Sciences Center - for 20 families
- Orphanages: St. Petersburg Orphanage # 31 of the Moscovskiy
Region, and Orphanage #17 of the Kirovskiy region
- Union of Professional Theater performers
Moscow Recipients
- (reported in a May 20, 1997 e-mail message from Natasha
Scribunova)
- All-Russian Association of Veterans, 200 kg
- City of Sergiev Posad, 585 kg divided between
- Trinity-Sergius Monastery (for soup kitchen)
- Society of Invalids
- Society of Veterans
- School for Deaf & Blind Children
- Ministry of Social Protection for the Moscow region, 705
kg (they are disseminating seeds among 147 Houses for elderly)
- All-Russian Association for the Blind, 310 kg
- Labor Department, 18.62 kg (they are disseminating seeds
among technical schools for disabled people in Moscow)
- Hospital for Mentally Disabled People in Vere'sk (Moscow
oblast), 95 kg
- All-Russian Association of Disabled People, 540 kg
- All-Russian Movement of Rural Women, 149.5 kg (they are
disseminating seeds among farmers who support homes & hospitals for orphans)
Each Recipient group has signed an agreement with CCI to:
- not sell the donated seeds
- distribute the seeds among the most needy within their
organizations
- furnish a detailed report to CCI about how the seeds were
used.
In five years of humanitarian seed
distribution (total of 97 tons), CCI has not received a single report of donated
seeds being resold. Groups looking for assistance in ensuring the
proper use of humanitarian aid can contact info@ccisf.org
[Return to CCI Home Page]
[Return to Ag Initiative
Main Page]