A milk processing plant will be brought from California and located in a quiet area of Santandrei, Bihor county. The plant, which is designed to produce 1,200 litres of milk hourly in an initial stage and 9,000 litres of milk hourly over the next five years, needs a 600,00-dollar investment entirely provided by Foster Farms Diary, based in Modesto, California.
The action is backed by charity organisation Assist International from Scotts Valley, California and Rotary International, through Modesto Sunrise Club.
The area where the plant will work is the mini-quarter built by "Caminul Felix" foundation, established in 1998 in order to support the social integration of abandoned teenagers.
The main members of the foundation are Assist International, Erikshjalpen and Mi Casita from Sweden, the Romanian association Actiunea Felix and the churches Amblecote (Great Britain) from Molndal and Falkoping (Sweden).
In 1992, the foundation established Caminul Felix I, with six houses for abandoned children from Bihor county, and subsequently started to build the first houses for Caminul Felix II, which is planned to have 10 units.
The new milk plant will hire especially major orphans and a share of the products processed there will supply the mini-quarter inhabitants and orphans admitted in the specialised institutions in Oradea.
Marcel Filip, the deputy director of Actiunea Felix association and the project's co-ordinator, recollects that the collaboration with the Americans did not set off so well. "We received a shipment of several hundreds kilos of powdered milk two or three years ago.
When we wanted to get it, the authorities from Constanta harbour informed us that we needed a sanitary authorisation. We did not know the procedures, as it was the first time we received a foodstuff donation shipment and we resorted to the company having donated it: Foster Farms."
"The company's manager, Bob Sprouse, sent us a quality certificate, but the document was rejected, while the shipment was still blocked. We tried again to get Bob Sprouse's help, but he bluntly said that he was too busy for writing papers.
As the powder milk packages had been deposited in the harbour for a couple of months, the President of Assist International, Bob Pagett, requested an appointment with the owners of Foster Farms, Sue and George Foster. This was how we met."
But this was a fortunate event. George Foster got the required authorisations from the US Agriculture Ministry and the powder milk eventually arrived at the orphans from Santandrei, while the ties between the foundation and the sender company strengthened.
The idea to build a milk processing plant shaped later and the plant was located at Modesto, worked there for a while in order to be tested and was then disassembled, wrapped and sent to Romania.
The building will be erected in September, this year, while the state-of-the-art technological line will be installed in November. Ron Foster, the executive manager of Foster Farms Dairy, said: "the plant will gradually become the largest milk processing unit in Romania."
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