News

The very first Lithuanian Language Testers Training Seminar in Vilnius will take place November 25-26th. Seminar participants will be taught to examine students taking a A1-A2-B1 language proficiency test. Such test is a big step in a long process trying to accomplish that Lithuanian language taught at the Lithuanian heritage schools all over the world would be valued at the same level as other heritage languages worldwide.

Application process to become an ASSIST scholar for the year 2017/2018 is open and available to all students currently in the 10th grade. ASSIST Lithuania was established to help young Lithuanian students who would like to spend one year as exchange students in the United States as 11th graders. 

"On this Veteran’s Day we must never forget the service of women to our country, especially during the Vietnam War," writes Jurate Kazickas, the president of the Kazickas Family Foundation, who is the co-author of the book, WAR TORN – STORIES OF WAR FROM THE WOMEN REPORTERS WHO COVERED VIETNAM.

Through the years the Kazickas Family Foundation supported publishing of history books, conferences for women journalists, youth missions to record stories of the deported and victims of the war, museum educational expositions on wars. Jurate Kazickas was a reporter who covered Vietnam. In remembrance of the Veterans, here are some excerpts from Jurate's piece "These Hills Called Khe Sanh" in "War Torn".

On November 9th, Peter Kazickas together with his uncle John Kazickas, Neila Baumiliene and Aiste Furajevaite visited the NBA Players Association headquarters to discuss Basketball Power program. They met with NBPA CAO, David Lafleur and Director of international relations and marketing, Matteo Zuretti. 

The Kazickas Family endowed professorship at the University of Washington Baltic Studies Program has been a productive contribution to the Legacy of Cultural Exchange. "Your donation a decade ago transformed the Program," shares Andrew Nestingen, Chair of the Department of Scandinavian Studies at UW in his letter to Jurate Kazickas. "The Kazickas Family Professorship holds central importance among the ten Baltic Studies endowments."

On Sunday after the All Souls Day, Michael, Beverly and Jack Kazickas with a group of Alexandra Kazickas Lithuanian school children and parents visited the grave site of dr. Joseph Kazickas, his wife Alexandra and their son Alexander at the East Hampton cemetery.

While celebrating "Gediminas" Lithuanian School's 14th birthday, schools family organized a day of fun and a KFF Matching Grant fundraiser at the Half Day Forest Preserve in Vernon Hills, IL. Alexandra Kazickas Grant Program has been supporting Lithuanian Heritage Schools in the US since 2012. In 2015 KFF added Matching Grant (up to $1,000) program with a goal to motivate schools to organize fund-raising events in order to support their school work.

The head of the Center of Chronic Respiratory Diseases in Children at Kaunas Pediatric Clinic, Dr. Valdone Miseviciene shares her thought about the conference "Chronic Respiratory Diseases in Children: From Theory to Clinical Practice" and is excited about the new polysomnography lab that had been acquired with KFF help and had already been successfully used by children in need.

The Kazickas family and friends send their best wishes to our dearest President Valdas Adamkus on his 90th birthday! As Jurate Kazickas shared in her speech during the opening of the Presidential Valdas Adamkus Library - Museum in Kaunas: "To many he is not just a President, but a role model, a man of great intellect, integrity and honesty. A skilled politician and a man who always fought for the greater good of the people. A man of peace".