Albanians Get Supplies Via Area Aid Team

At first passing, the nondescript office in the Camarillo Business Park offers no clue on the dangerous missions the workers participate in.

But for the last 12 years, Mission Without Borders International has been quietly pressing forward with its humanitarian endeavor to feed, clothe and provide medical aid to children in Eastern Europe and China out of its home base in Camarillo.

Last week, the organization delivered desperately needed food and hygiene supplies to orphans in war-torn Albania for the first time since the country’s upheaval began in March.

The delivery--which is made by truck from the organization’s warehouses in Rotterdam, the Netherlands--brought a letter of thanks from the head of the orphanage, who called it “an action of love of people for these unlucky kids in a hopeless situation.”

Next week, Mission Without Borders plans to deliver more food along with medical supplies to Albania.

Founded by Camarillo resident Lois Bass and her ex-husband, Joe, in the 1960s, the nonprofit organization was born in the Bass’ garage in Oklahoma, where the couple began handing out fliers to neighbors, church groups and friends seeking donations for the orphans.

Soon after, the couple moved to Camarillo and the organization blossomed into a $27-million nonprofit agency with fund-raising offices in 13 countries. The group has 35 employees in Camarillo and 450 worldwide.

At first, the organization had to function underground because the Communist governments in Eastern Europe would not allow Western aid into their orphanages.

It was not until 1989, when the regimes fell throughout Eastern Europe, that the organization began delivering the services in cooperation with the governments.

The organization still must work underground in China.

Today, Mission Without Borders is the largest nongovernmental organization in Romania, mission officials say.

But field directors Diana and Dermot Curtis both remember the dark days of communism and the awful sights they witnessed when the Romanian orphanages where opened up for the world to see.

“It was horrific,” said Diana Curtis, who began the Romanian operation with her husband in 1990. “We found children that had been warehoused, and nobody in the community knew about it. It was shattering for the Romanians to see what had happened in their back doorstep.”

For more information on the organization, 987-8880.