Free Shipping Grants

Providing humanitarian assistance sounds a lot easier to do than most people think. In fact, the cost of collecting, warehousing, sorting, shipping, clearing Customs and then distributing the goods can actually cost far more than the goods themselves are worth. In fact, most humanitarian aid responders today agree that the quickest and most efficient method it simply to collect funds, and buy locally produced goods to help the needy!

Unfortunately, it is usually harder to collect funds than it is to collect gifts in kind donations. Obviously, once cannot accept any gift that comes your way, but assuming one knows what he/she is doing, and even assuming you can find a local warehouse to donate space, and volunteers to sort and pack, the cost of shipping can be insurmountable!

One of our very first actions, actually even before registering the Global Jewish Network, was to learn about free shipping grants being provided by the US State Department for humanitarian aid shipments from anywhere in the world to needy people in the Former Soviet Union. Back in the early 1990's the average cost of shipping one full 40' container from the USA to Russia or Ukraine was between $4,500 - $6,000 and almost double for a refrigerated reefer container.

We shared this information with other Jewish groups shipping humanitarian assistance, such as Operation Open Curtain, Vaad Lhatzalas Nidchei Yisroel, Lishkas Ezras Achim, Slonim, and many others. In fact, we actually helped many of these organizations ship their containers free of charge and even help them clear Customs in the countries of the FSU using our field people and expertise.

In its first 10 years, GJARN shipped 279 containers of privately collected relief goods, (clothing, food, medications, toys and even machine baked Matza from Israel) in addition to more than 13,000 containers of donated USDA surplus foods containing more than 100,000,000 lb. of food with a value of more than $120 million dollars.

Our accountability and efficiency has received praise from the US Government and host governments in the countries where the aid was distributed.