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Pacifist Group Seeking Aid for Iraqis

Basic essentials, cash donations welcome

Tuesday, October 15, 2002
By Tim Logan
Tribune Staff Writer

Sheila Provencher, left, who opposes President Bush's policy on Iraq, meets opposition from Sam Dux on Monday during a rally outside the Federal Courthouse in downtown South Bend.
Image Credit: Jim Rider -- SBT.

The aid packages will be shipped to Jordan, inspected at the border with Iraq, and sent the rest of the way by truck, Paulovich said. Medicine and tents will be purchased in the Mideast. They hope to send the goods in December, so they arrive before January and February, when some experts predict a war would begin.

GOSHEN -- SBT
As the nation readies itself for a possible war with Iraq, one church with deep roots in Michiana is readying itself to send aid to the Iraqi people.

The Mennonite Central Committee is seeking donations for relief shipments to Iraq, fearing that a potential conflict could displace thousands of families and worsen the country's already dire economic conditions.

Marisa Sandahl, 18, a Saint Mary's College student, joins protesters who marched Monday from the Federal Courthouse in downtown South Bend to the offices of U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer.
Image Credit: Jim Rider -- SBT.

They're looking for basic essentials such as new towels, toothbrushes, bandages and detergent and cash donations to buy medicine and tents and pay for shipping. Ten Mennonite offices in North America, including one in Goshen, are each trying to collect 1,600 such relief kits, to be shipped to Iraq in December.

"What we're doing is just a drop in the bucket," said Cheryl Paulovich, a regional associate at the Goshen office of the Great Lakes Mennonite Central Committee. "But we want to be doing something constructive, not something destructive."

The committee is the peace and service agency of the Mennonite Church in North America. In recent years, they've sent humanitarian aid and service workers to trouble spots all over the world, from Nicaragua to Cambodia to Afghanistan, where $4.6 million has gone in the past year.
(More: SouthBendTribune.com News Source)
2002 © The South Bend Tribune.

Dan