Saskatchewan Man Brings Spirit of Giving to Former
Soviet Union
Walking through a street bazaar one Saturday morning in Bishkek,
the capital city of the Cental Asian country of Kyrgyzstan, Lorrie
Reid and Kim Chowns saw them for the first time. The bazaar, an
open-air market of western goods such as soap and shampoo as well
as meat kiosks thick with flies, was also thick with beggars.
"There was this wall of old people begging for money," Reid recalls.
"Kim took one side of the street and I took the other, dropping
10 som notes, worth almost an American dollar. People would hug
you with tears in their eyes."
Later, when Reid left his Bishkek hotel to take a 4 a.m. flight
back to Canada, he saw another side of Kyrgyzstan.
"Kids were in front of the hotel begging and selling gum. At that
time of night, my kids better be home. That hit a nerve, especially
since my son had just asked me for another $2,500 BMX bicycle. Our
kids are blowing that kind of money for entertainment and here you
see kids with nothing."
Reid, a mill maintenance planner at the Kumtor gold mine, owned
two-thirds by the Kyrgyz government and one-third by Saskatchewan-based
Cameco Corporation, decided he had to do more for Kyrgyzstan's children
because "they're the ones who are defenceless."
He works a rotating shift of 28 days at the mine and 28 days back
home in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. When he returned to North
Battleford after his experience with the beggars he packed up some
of his children's used toys and took them to Kyrgyzstan.
"I handed them out as I'd go through the country. We focused on
kids right away."
He soon began collecting something there is an abundance of in
Canada.
"Gerry Halsall was driving around the country a lot and he noticed
how the Kyrgyz kids loved baseball caps. I come from a community
where everyone I know has 50 caps in a closet somewhere."
Within six months Reid's family had gathered more than 2,000 caps,
"until my daughter said 'Dad when can we quit counting caps?' "
Halsall, Kumtor's maintenance manager, settled on a simple distribution
method.
"Gerry would take them to his home [in Kyrgyzstan] and just dump
them on his lawn," Reid explains. "Kids would come over and stand around trying them on, until he showed them that they were adjustable. You could tell the Kyrgyz kids who watched
television because they all wore their caps backwards."
"Lorrie's always been a community kind of guy," says Halsall, who
has been friends with Reid for 12 years and, before Kumtor, worked
with him at Cameco's Rabbit Lake and Key Lake operations in northern
Saskatchewan. Reid thought the caps were a great idea but believed
a lot more could be done. He contacted Irene Lewis, director of
corporate relations, at the Kumtor Operating Company for advice.
"She was already getting requests and she gave me a list of shoes,
toys, warm clothing, pens, pencils, paper - basically the idea was
to try to give the kids a chance to live and have a little fun at
the same time."
Once again he started at home - with his family's closets, and
then expanded to his circle of friends and co-workers. "I'm basically
not really shy. I started with the guys I know at the Cameco minesites.
I have no problem sending faxes to all these places. I keep hounding
the sites and the guys there keep thinking of new things."
A number of Cameco workers jumped in feet first - particularly
Rick Smith at Rabbit Lake and John 'Scotty' Methvan at Key Lake.
After a while the results became almost overwhelming. They were
averaging 15 bags per week at about 32 kilograms per bag.
"I would fill a van, take the seats out and strap bags into the
passenger seat with a seat belt," Reid explains.
Reid's wife Barb, owner-manager of the North Battleford Fabricland
store helped out too - she just happened to have a 200-metre bolt
of waterproof fluorescent orange material. After "testing a lot
of sewing machines," Reid hunkered down and sewed about 90 bags,
each large enough to hold the equivalent of three large trash bags.
Reid soon expanded his circle again. He spoke to service clubs
and church groups around Saskatchewan, explaining the need in Kyrgyzstan.
"The children have nothing. Some don't go to school because they
have no clothes to wear. The orphans take turns going outside in
winter because there's not enough winter clothing for them all."
People responded to Reid's plea.
In fact, the response was so great he experienced a problem - getting
the donated goods to Kyrgyzstan. With 24 large orange bags, or more
than 750 kilograms, to ship every two weeks he could no longer use
his previous method - having his colleagues on the regular Kumtor
charters to Bishkek fill their bags to the maximum allowable weight.
Reid reacted with his usual can do attitude and called Canadian
Airlines, which Kumtor uses for its charter flights. The airline
agreed to send 15 bags, free of charge, on the Kumtor charters.
He also talked to Tim Kramer of Kramer Ltd., a Saskatchewan-based
company that supplies Kumtor with various types of equipment. Donation
are now accepted at Kramer dealerships around Saskatchewan and then
shipped in sea-can containers along with equipment parts being sent
to Kyrgyzstan.
The donations are taken to six orphanages in the Bishkek area -
which have between 120 and 150 children living at each.
"Lorrie's work has such an impact here," says Kumtor's Irene Lewis.
"There's simply never been anyone like him in Kyrgyzstan and people
here are just astonished at what he and his friends have been able
to do and why they do it."
Though Reid's contributions would be significant anywhere, they
are even more so in the Kyrgyz Republic which is poor, remote and
where, as a former state of the Soviet Union, there is no charitable
tradition.
When Reid visited one of the orphanages with a load of donations
even the media people were astounded at what he was doing.
"They couldn't believe it," Reid recalls. "They kept asking where
I got all the stuff - they didn't believe that I didn't have to
buy it, that people would just give it to me."
And most important to him were "the expressions on the kids faces
- they just beamed." He was told it was the first time many of them
had a toy to call their own.
Now, more than two years after he first saw beggars on the streets
of Bishkek, Reid is still going strong. More than 15 tonnes of donate
goods have been shipped from Canada and he and his friends have
started a charitable foundation: The Tien Shan Children's Relief
Foundation Inc. The reason - Reid found out that about 100 children
born with harelips were abandoned to orphanages by their parents
and corrective surgery would cost about $100 US, and that another
200 orphans have club feet and other correctable conditions that
would cost about $200 US per operation.
His new goal is to raised $50,000 US to help give these children
a chance at a better life.
