News article copied from the Thursday, January 17, 2002 of "THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE" The Yolo County, California, newspaper where the University of California, Davis is located.

YOLO OFFICE CONTINUES ITS EFFORTS TO AID LITHUANIA SENDING DONATIONS IS MORE COSTLY FOLLOWING SEPT. 11

The events of Sept. 11 continue to reverberate across the county and the world, in this case affecting both Yolo County and Lithuania.

On Sept. 15, 2001, the U.S.Air Force was scheduled to fly a shipment of agricultural and humanitarian donations to Lithuania. That airlift was canceled after Sept. 11 when all humanitarian flights were diverted to Afghanistan.

Larry Clement, director of UC Cooperative Extension offices in Yolo and Solano counties [note by VS: between San Francisco and Sacramento, California], spent months collecting donations for a model farm in Lithuania and a year working through red tape with the Air Force.

Finally, he had $350,000 worth of donations or 97,000 pounds of agricultural equipment (tractors, combines, discs and plows) plus books, school supplies, children's toys and clothing to be distributed throughout Lithuania.

Clement said small farmers in Lithuania consider these donations "manna from heaven."

Clement and the Yolo County Sister County Advisory Committee collected eight to 10 tons in donations from farmers, local businesses, students and community members to send to Siauliai County after a sister-county relationship with Siauliai (pronounced show-LAY) began two years ago.

The donations were boxed, crated and ready to be loaded at Travis AFB and flown to Siauliai International Airport when the Air Force halted all humanitarian shipments in order to concentrate on Afghanistan.

"But we were committed to making it happen for Lithuania," Clement said on Tuesday. So he found a company in Chicago that arranged for him to ship an even larger cargo by sea.

"We got the whole thing done in just 30 days", Clement said. The donations were shipped out of Oakland on Dec. 30 and are now someplace in the middle of the ocean, due to arrive in the port city Klaipeda, Lithuania, at just about the same time Clement goes.

Clement is taking a sabbatical leave beginning March 1. He and his wife are going to Lithuania where he will teach economy and marketing at Siauliai University .

The only problem is money. Had the donations been shipped by the Air Force, there would have been no cost attached. But by shipment by sea cost over $34,000.

The nonprofit Auksuciai Foundation took out a loan to pay for the shipment, and Clement hopes donations will help with the pay-back.

The Auksuciai Foundation was created by a retired engineer from Burlingame, CA, Vytautas J. Sliupas, a native of Lithuania whose family left Lithuania when the communists took over in 1948. When lands that had been confiscated by the government were returned, Sliupas found himself the owner of 400-acre farm in the middle of a very poor country thousands of miles away from his home.

So he donated it to a nonprofit foundation he created and asked Clement to join the board as vice president of programs and operations on what it has become a model farm.

"I'm English and French," Clement said. "I have no ties to Lithuania. But theirs is a country in desperate need and they are being ignored."

Clement, who lives in Fairfield, said the farm operated by the Auksuciai Foundation (named after the village where the farm is located) is being developed along the lines of a UC Cooperative Extension experiment station complete with classrooms.

"Nearly 40 percent of the farmers in Lithuania have less than 12 acres," he said in an earlier interview. "It's a hand-to-mouth situation. "

"They do OK but could do a lot better if we could teach them to function in a free market economy. We want to help small farmers become more market-oriented," he added.

"Here's a forgotten corner of the world, important in the grand scheme of things because everyone needs the same opportunities," Clement said. "But Lithuania is being ignored because it is not a political entity like other countries in the former Soviet bloc."

In addition to funding the model farm, the Auksuciai Foundation also brought an exchange student from Auksuciai, Lina Kuklieriute, who is living in Davis this year and working at a seed processing plant in Woodland.

Those who would like to help pay for the shipment may send donations to John Chiles, treasurer, the Auksuciai Foundation at 1324 Clara Lane, Davis, CA 95616 or directly to the Auksuciai Foundation, 2907 Frontera Way, Burlingame, CA 94010.