19 January 2002

Happy New Year to all of our supporters! Despite the violence and tragedies in 2001, AFOC was able to meet its goals and to plan for the same level of effort in
2002. We have received two grants for postage and one for fish net webbing that will cover the needs in three villages and can reach a fourth with the donations we get during 2002. We received an increasing number of thank you letters from families. Most include a description of their communities and activities. Many include
requests for specific things they can't get locally and we try to fill these, at least one time. Usually these are supplies for children, sometimes for fishing or hunting needs.Life is slowly getting better in Chukotka. The most emergent needs were covered by the new government: food staples and fuel. Every contact we have had tells us the stores still are short in non-food supplies, especially clothing for children and foot wear.
 
  Here is a summary of our activity during 2001:

  Number of groups and individuals in the AFOC network who sent boxes direct: 30. Some of these sponsored whole villages or boarding schools or hospitals.
Smaller groups sponsored 1-4 families. Some of these send a box every 6 months to their family. The network includes people across the US. One big shipment was over 100 ski jackets donated by the American Friends Service Committee main office. Their SF office helped mail them and paid half the postage. They have arrived at some of the boarding schools. Other especially large shipments went from the Chena Ridge Friends Meeting at Fairbanks and the Jewel LakeMethodists in Anchorage. These went to village boarding schools and village administrations. Individual family shipments (one to four boxes) went to eight villages, including 34 fish net webs and 17 village schools. Total boxes from Nome came to over 350 and from other places the total was at least that. Three hospitals and one orphanage were each sent many boxes.

  Postage funds donors to AFOC were over 50.  The Alaskan Synod Evangelical Lutheran Church donated $2000 for this and a private donor several thousand.
Our latest grant, to be used for nets for two villages in 2002, comes from a US AID grant to the American-Russian Center at University of Alaska.

   Our administrative costs remained low:  stamps, tape, postcards. Our space is donated by the Nome United Methodist Church.  Their thrift shop also
provides us a large amount of winter clothing. (This comes from all over the country to Nome.)

   AFOC also helped with several groups of travelers this year, both in hosting and entertaining them in Nome and also in letting them select what they wanted
from our collection. They passed on to us the addresses of more families with a number of children.

   What remains to be done?  We would like to send to all of the villages remaining in the next two years.  Obviously this does not meet their needs in clothing.
It is an expression of neighborliness and good will from Alaska , and all over America. We will continue to coordinate with other groups who are sending aid
into Chukotka.  In addition we would like to answer every special request we get by letter from families or teachers.

For the overall success in 2001 we would like to thank all of the individual families who sent and also the following organizations who helped in some way: North
Slope Borough, National Park Service, American-Russian Center-UAA,  American Friends Service Committee, Russian Far East Task Force, Russian Far East Mission, Alaskan Lutheran Synod, Bering Air, and the Methodist, Quaker, Moravian, Covenant, and Lutheran local congregations who took on their own projects,
coordinating with us.

In our next newsletter we will include more excerpts from the thank you letters this last year.

AFOC October 2001 Newsletter

AFOC September 2001 Newsletter

AFOC July 2001 Newsletter

AFOC April 2001 Update

AFOC February 2001 Newsletter

AFOC January 2001 Newsletter

AFOC December 2000 Newsletter

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