Charity fills Ukraine need for machines
By BETH FITZGERALD
mailto:cisdf@ndim.com
A container full of discarded American technology is being shipped to the former Soviet Union by a South River-based charity that finds new life in old machines. 
Established early this year by two Russian scientists who immi-grated to New Jersey, the CIS Devel-opment Foundation collects tax-deductible donations of old but serviceable consumer electronics, medical equipment and scientific instruments.
The foundation is trying to fill hundreds of technology appeals from hospitals and charities in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
The first 40-foot container load of discarded industrial Americana should depart this week from Port Newark to its final destination of Kiev, and preparations have begun for a shipment to Moscow next month, according to Olga Welsh, foundation spokeswoman.
The first delivery includes "11 dental units, four or five X-ray machines, computers, monitors, printers, typewriters, photocopiers, clothing and shoes," Welsh said. The foundation will accept even obsolete technology, such as the 286 personal computers that are junked in the U.S. but can get another lease on life in the CIS, according to Welsh.
"Most important, we've established channels for getting things,, where they are supposed to go", Welsh said. The foundation has affiliates registered as nonprofit organizations in several CIS countries, "which means we can ship items duty-free, which saves on our costs," Welsh said. Transportation is handled by Express Shipping Service, whose Linden warehouse store donations that have strained the capacity of the foundation's offices at 75 Reid St. in South River. Plans are to move to Linden, so the foundation can be closer to the warehouse.
"We give a second life to goods which are piling up in US warehouses and garages, taking up much needed space, but which are desperately needed in the CIS," the foundation says in its mission statement.
The foundation is run by Welsh and by Russian-trained biologist Vadim Arefiev, vice president, and President Alexander Bondarev, a metallurgical chemist.
"We need computers that are in he workable condition, because we can’t put money into fixing them," Arefiev explained. While most of the machines that have arrived thus far are 286s, "we have started getting some 386 and 486 machines, and we hope we’ll start getting some Pentiums as people upgrade," Arefiev added An educational program for farmers in the Ukraine is part of the Initial technology shipment.
Arefiev said Ukraine farmers have been reluctant to buy some U.S. wheat contaminated by a harmless disease that changes the odor and color of the grain; the foundation is sending computers and educational software to teach farmers that this wheat is safe to farm animals, he explained.

* Picture: Alexander Bondarev, left, Vadim Arefiev and Olga Welsh of the CIS Development Foundation in South River lend a hand in loading equipment onto a trailer for shipment to Ukraine.

C.I.S. Development Foundation, Inc.
77 Milltown Rd., Suite 8c, East Brunswick, NJ 08816, USA
Tel: (732) 432-7037,  Fax: (732) 432-7034
E-mail: cisdf@cisdf.org