A special Food Bank drive was held March 27th-28th throughout Lithuania due to deteriorating economic conditions which are especially acute for the poor. (The project is organized by the charity "Maisto Bankas", en. "Food Bank".)

Our volunteer Aurelija gave out leaflets to shop customers & asking them to donate food. She also invited her pupils from middle school where she teaches English language to help as volunteers. 5 of them joined us.

Thanks to the help of our 40-strong volunteer group &, of course, generosity of shopping center customers who donated food, we managed to collect food twice as much as last year, November 28th-29th! In monetary terms, it is worth 21 thousand Litas, over 6 thousand Euro.

Food Drive!
Here at HOPE worldwide Lithuania, we were able to participate in an annual nation-wide food drive this year from November 28th-29th.

Thanks to our 40 volunteers we managed to raise food for over 10 000 Litas, almost 3000 Euro. This is more than twice the value collected ever before!

It was a wonderful experience serving together!

The food will be distributed to our seniors at the Old Friends' Home in the form of handouts.

Our Summer 2008
July 13th we had our old friend – 90 year old poet Jonas Stasaitis - read his satirical poems about the devil & his schemes against the man. Also some of our elderly read their own poems.

The elderly visited a museum of our national writer-poet Vincas Mykolaitis Putinas, July 24th. They learned many interesting things about him & played interesting poetry games.

Throughout all summer we sought to have lots & lots of fruit, berries during the Elderly parties (locally grown strawberries, blackberries from forest, black & red currant).

We had a chance to discuss opportunities of setting up charitable activities with Christians from Tallinn, Tartu & Ryga.

A Look Back at the Year 2007
There were many great events as well as very inspiring developments for us as a charity bringing together those who give & those who are in need of receiving during the last year.

2007 was definitely a year of growing volunteer involvement & devotion. Especially notable were the last two events: Seniors’ Christmas & New Year parties.

Here’s the scene: the kitchen & the main meeting room are filled with volunteers buzzing around doing innumerable tasks to serve the seniors: packing the gifts, washing fruit, serving tables, making coffee & tea, cleaning, writing greeting cards, reading the Bible, giving out food hand-outs, making photos, shooting photos, doing dishes, talking with seniors… Everyone is busy for there are many things to do. But they are not stressed, no, volunteers are happy & smiling…

I am hard pressed to find proper words to express the feelings of contentment I experienced at these parties. We were united in serving the needy: not our self-interest but others’. Even one’s face begins to look different: shining with joy which overflows from the depths of your heart.

Here are main highlights of the year 2007:

• Changing hearts: volunteers- serving, seniors & orphans- gratitude
• Blood drive – launched this year; there were 3 events totally
• More content-rich events
• Seniors
  · More seniors served
  · More focus to meeting spiritual needs
• Orphans
  · Growing ties between orphans & volunteers

Naturally, there were also things which were lacking: Need for Greater Seniors’ Self-Help, More Proactive, Less Self-Oriented Attitudes Promotion. These are going to be our focus areas for this year, among others.

We are enthusiastically stepping into 2008. Honestly, I can’t wait to see many other wonderful powerful changes take place in hearts & lives of our seni0rs at Old Friends’ Home & the Orphanage, as well as those around being positively influenced.