Beginnings

Vaiva Radasta Vebra was the only child of Juozas Vėbra and Genevieve Vebra nee Genovaitė Židonytė. The entire Židonis family fled Lithuania ahead of the communists during WWII, Juozas Vėbra was arrested during the war for his anti-Nazi activities.  After he was liberated from a concentration camp, he knew that certain death or deportation to Siberia awaited him should he return to his family in Lithuania (a wife, two sons and a daughter).  He reunited with the Židonis family, whom he knew before the war, in a displaced persons camp.  He and Genevieve left for France, and eventually settled in New Haven, CT, where Vaiva was born.  The rest of the Židonis family emigrated to Albany, NY, but soon joined the Vebras in New Haven.  They were all active in New Haven’s Lithuanian community, and in the St. Casimir’s Lithuanian church.

This background is offered to explain Vaiva’s fierce, lifelong determination, tenacity and patriotism, which was one vital key to the success of a.p.p.l.e.  Although born in New Haven, she was raised Lithuanian, and did not learn English until she began attending public school.  She lived a Lithuanian life in America.  She founded a Lithuanian Saturday school, danced with and led a Lithuanian folk dance group, was active in countless Lithuanian organizations. 

As the possibility of Lithuania’s return to independence became tangible with the advent of perestroika in the late 1980s, Vaiva’s activism went public.  She co-founded the Lithuanian Resource Center in Hartford, CT, in support of Lithuania’s independence.  She (and I, in the background) created Americans for Lithuanian Independence, which launched a petition drive in support of the independence movement and Sajudis. Over 160,000 signatures were collected from 49 states and 27 countries.  Vaiva presented them to Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole in Washington, DC. In 1990.

The signatures were collected by creating a network of Lithuanians and sympathetic Americans who, in turn, recruited people to collect signatures and gather more recruits.  It was something of a pyramid scheme. Signatures were collected first at Lithuanian churches, then at other churches, then anywhere volunteers felt comfortable to go.

These organizational efforts were the first and second drafts of the entity that was to become a.p.p.l.e.

In the summer of 1990 Vaiva attended a seminar, I believe called Santara-Šviesa, a gathering of Lithuanian intellectuals.  There she met for the first time Darius Kuolys, then the Minister of Education for the newly independent Lithuania.  My understanding is that Kuolys and Vaiva were chatting with Romas Sakadolskis at or after that gathering, when Kuolys suggested that Lithuanian teachers needed to build professional ties to the West, and some sort of group was necessary to facilitate that.  Sakadolskis nominated Vaiva for the job of creating such a group, and she accepted.

Vaiva joined with her lifelong friend Jurate Krokys-Stirbiene in founding an organization for promoting ties between educators in America and Lithuania.  Jurate was already working on a similar track.  Vaiva asked me to develop some choices for naming the organization, and American Professional Partnership for Lithuanian Education was among the first ideas I recommended.  The name communicated both the means and the ends of the new entity.  The fact that the acronym was a.p.p.l.e. was a happy coincidence.

To get the new organization off the ground, Vaiva returned to the network of contacts she had developed for the Lithuanian Resource Center and the Americans for Lithuanian Independence.  This existing network, already familiar with Vaiva and her work, allowed the fledgling a.p.p.l.e. to “hit the ground running,” demonstrating early success in gathering financial support and building credibility.  We created a direct-mail newsletter for communicating with supporters and raising initial funding.