East Amherst, NY to Nicaragua; How does it all happen??
It is truly a miracle when you think about how 42 semi-trucks full of over 1,000 boxes and bags (that's more than 42,000 boxes and bags of goods) are donated and shipped from JUST the WESTERN NEW YORK AREA to the Nicaragua Mission Compound in Nicaragua EACH YEAR. But how do people's generous donations that have been collected from people in the community, schools, church organizations, get from Transit Road in East Amherst, NY to Nicaragua?
All goods start out in a stored covered garage or steel containers. On Tuesdays, volunteers, sometimes as many as 70 men, women and teens gather. Some workers stay in the container to arrange the items as they come up the mechanized ramp while others from a line passing the items along to the truck.
At the truck, Ann Marie Zonn, founder of the Nicaragua Mission Project, counts the containers and notes their contents on a clipboard in order to have the information needed when shipping goods overseas.
After the containers, each carrying about 1,000 boxes are loaded, shippers take them away to New Jersey where they are put on ships to the port of Corinto on Nicaragua's west coast and then driven to the town of Teustepe where they are unloaded and sorted. From here, these goods from Western New York begin touching the lives of the people in Nicaragua.