Santa Cruz Caravan To Cuba Offers Travel Scholarships

May 5, 2006

Media Contact: Carolyn Blackman

247 0330

Public Contact: 465 8272

For Immediate Release: Santa Cruz Caravan To Cuba Offers Travel Scholarships


In spite of the fact that only the U.S. and Israel oppose U.N .resolutions to end the forty-seven year old embargo and travel ban to Cuba, and in spite of the fact that Congress consistently votes to end it, the Bush administration continues to tighten restrictions on travel to that country.

Every year the Pastors for Peace, headed by the Reverend Lucius Walker, organizes a humanitarian aid caravan to challenge the ban and exercise the right to travel to Cuba as an act of civil disobedience. Medical equipment, baseballs, books, and medicine are collected and loaded onto buses. The vehicles then travel from city to city picking up “Caravanistas” that fill up the seats. Their routes form like tributaries of a river and converge together in McAllen, Texas on July 2 to cross the border into Mexico. The buses are then shipped to Cuba while the travelers are flown to Havanna.

In Havanna, the vehicles and aid are distributed by the Council of Churches while the Caravanistas spend a week in Cuba seeing different aspects of life and development in that country.

Each year they are also greeted by customs officials and Homeland Security agents who try to stop the caravan from proceeding. Last year, they were also greeted upon returning home by letters warning them of fines up to $7,000.00 for traveling to Cuba without the requisite license. The Caravanistas are challenging these fines and the regulations that prohibit their travel to Cuba as an unwarranted limitation of their freedom to travel.

The trip takes place during hottest time of the year at the end of June and beginning of July. The Santa Cruz contingent of the Caravan will leave Santa Cruz on June 25 and travel down the coast of California. It is arduous, but nevertheless hundreds will be joining the Caravan July 2 for the seventeenth year.

This year, in addition to donating vehicles, the Santa Cruz Caravan will be offering partial scholarships to interested individuals who may not otherwise be able to afford the trip. For more information call Nancy at 465-8272.