Reply #3: Woman gets first Maine delivery of discounted Venezuelan oil

[Judi Lynn]

Woman gets first Maine delivery of discounted Venezuelan oil

The Boston Globe
December 12, 2006
By Jerry Harkavy

PORTLAND, Maine -A Venezuelan-funded program that provides discounted heating oil for thousands of needy Mainers kicked off its second season Tuesday, this time without the blessing of Gov. John Baldacci.
The first delivery arranged through Citizens Energy Corp., a Massachusetts-based nonprofit company, went to Elece Leonard, a 55-year-old woman who lives alone and is unable to work because she suffers from diabetes.

"This is awesome," Leonard said before the oil truck pulled up outside her four-room apartment in the Munjoy Hill neighborhood. "I think this is what the state of Maine needs because there's a lot of us who can't afford the cost of heating oil."

The chairman of Citizens Energy, former U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy, was scheduled to drive the truck but was forced to change his plans because of an injury, said Brian O'Connor, the corporation's vice president who filled in as speaker at the event.
(snip)

O'Connor said Kennedy, whose company has been providing energy assistance to the poor for more than a quarter century, had approached every oil company and every oil-exporting nation to see if they would be willing to help.

"The only company and the only country to respond was Citgo, and the people of Venezuela," he said.
(snip/...)

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/venezuela/4415.html

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We read the reports last week of the season's first heating oil being delivered to a Baltimore home.

Poor citizens in 16 states, and 163 Native American tribes are in line to receive assistance (not free oil) from Venezuelan oil people over this winter. We've also read that there are arrangements made to give away oil to some American homeless shelters.