Marian Waltz has never been to Cuba, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel kinship with the people there.

She and her husband, Jim Goetsch, manage Fort Wayne’s Friends of the Third World Shoppe, 611 W. Wayne St., which specializes in merchandise made in developing countries, with the aim of helping their people earn a fair wage.

“I would love to be able to sell items from Cuba,” Waltz, 58, says. But because of a long-standing U.S. embargo, Cuban items are off-limits.

So, when the couple, long active in peace causes, heard about another way to aid Cuba’s people, they signed on. Earlier this month they, with the Peace and Justice Committee of Fort Wayne’s Unitarian Universalist Congregation, hosted a local stop of one of eight Friendshipment to Cuba caravans.

The annual aid caravans, in their 21st year, aim to deliver construction, educational and medical supplies to the Caribbean island nation, under Communist rule since 1959.

The caravans are sponsored by the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization and Pastors for Peace, both based in New York City.

Ellen Bernstein, Pastors for Peace’s associate director, who spoke July 7 during the Fort Wayne event at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House at 5310 Old Mill Road, says the group is spotlighting what it sees as a failed U.S. policy of isolating Cuba economically.

The embargo, which severely restricts the sale of American products in Cuba and bans U.S. sales of Cuban products and most travel, was put in place after the Cuban missile crisis in the early 1960s.

But the policy hurts both the Cuban people and Americans, she said, adding that Cubans have especially been struggling since the breakup of the Soviet Union, which had been a major trading partner.

She says aid caravans that have been crisscrossing the United States this month were to meet Wednesday in Texas at the U.S.-Mexico border. Organizers were to cross into Mexico so the supplies can be delivered by cargo ship from Tampico, Mexico.

It is illegal to ship goods from the United States to Cuba without a U.S. Treasury license, group officials say, and offenses carry a $50,000 fine. But Pastors for Peace has never been penalized, they say.

Waltz says she and her husband got involved with the group many years ago when it sponsored a partnership of Indiana communities that helped build a medical clinic in Rio San Juan, Nicaragua.

Their aim now is to form an ongoing aid relationship between residents of Fort Wayne and Cuba. About 25 people turned out for the talk and several donated construction supplies and money, she says.

The supplies will be distributed by an association of Christian churches in Cuba, she says.

However, Cuban expatriate Julio Garcia of Fort Wayne says humanitarian efforts to Cuba are “a sensitive situation” among Cuban-Americans.

He said many Cubans “are in dire need.” But he says some expatriates believe aid only further entrenches the Communist regime by making life in Cuba more tolerable.

Many expatriates believe those in power in Cuba “need to take responsibility for taking care of their people” or step down, Garcia says.

He pointed to a public appearance by Fidel Castro earlier this month after a long absence attributed to his advancing age and illness, saying some see it as an attempt to solidify power in the hands of his younger brother, Raul.

Garcia, who recently retired as a Spanish teacher at North Side High School, came to Fort Wayne in the 1960s as a teen escaping the Castro revolution. He and about 35 other boys were resettled in the city through the Pedro Pan movement supported by the Roman Catholic Church in Cuba and the United States.

Dave Lambert of Fort Wayne, a member of the Unitarians’ peace and justice committee, says he understands the expatriates’ position – and sees the irony of religious people in America now giving aid to a country whose regime has been hostile to churches and religion.

But he still contributed $50 and some tools to the caravan.

“There are struggling people there like there are here and everywhere in the world, and their struggles would not be as great if we could lift the blockade,” Lambert says.

“If we really believe in Jesus, then we have to follow the words of Jesus, which are to love your enemy and reach out to people in need,” he adds. “We’re seeing people as human beings.

rsalter@jg.net