News

During their visit to Lithuania, KFF President Jurate Kazickas together with her daughter Alexandra Altman stopped by at the Juvenile Detention Facility, also called Juvenile Socialization Center, in Veliucionys. Twenty three teens who will spend three to nine months at the center, currently live there. 

On February 25th Lithuanian Community of New York together with the Consulate General of Lithuania in New York invited all to celebrate Lithuanian Independence Day at the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Brooklyn where Lithuanian Choral Ensemble Dainava, supported by KFF, performed.

Every year Kaunas University of Technology faculty of Informatics Informikas Academy invites school children to participate at regional information technologies, computer programming and sciences contests in Zemaitija, Aukstaitija, Suvalkija, Dzukija and Kaunas, as well as final Dr. J. P. Kazickas computer forum which will take place on March 25th this year.

On February 23rd, New York Ateitininkai and New York Professionals club organized discussion "Dual Citizenship and the Constitution of Lithuania" at the Consulate General of Lithuania in NY. Juratė Kazickas and Neila Baumiliene from KFF participated in the discussion. An issue of maintaining Lithuanian citizenship is significant in foundation's work between the US and Lithuania.

“Basketball Power” head Arminas Vareika rekindled old friendship with men’s wheelchair basketball team “Draugyste”(Friendship) that started during the season closing of “Basketball Power” program at the KFF-NBA newly refurbished court in 2015. "Draugyste" had a friendly match with the latest program’s friends, basketball club “Kazkur Matyti” (Somewhere Seen).

In response to KFF request for a meeting, vice Minister of Interior of Lithuania Mr. Urbonas organized one on 2/13/2017 in the Ministry, in Vilnius.

In the beginning of February, while in Lithuania, members of the Kazickas Family and foundation's administration, along with the head of Basketball Power (BP) program, visited the Zalgiris Arena in Kaunas where they got a tour of the arena, team rooms, practice court, and private boxes and met with Paulius Motiejunas, President of BC"Zalgiris", to tell him about the BP program.

As suicide in Lithuania has become a significant national social issue due to its high rate (29 out of 100,000 people in 2014), KFF has been looking at the problem as well. On February 16, 2017, in the Kazickas Family Residence, a meeting with Prof. Paulius Skruibis, Dr. Vaiva Klimaite and Ms. Agne Mazvilaite was held. Paulius is an associate professor at the Department of Clinical Psychology at Vilnius University, Lithuania. Vaiva is a psychologist and the Head of the Department of Suicide prevention Vilnius Center of Mental Health, Vilnius University. Agne is the Head of Youth Hotline of Lithuania. 

During Marcie, John, Annalina and Peter Kazickas visit to Lithuania in January and February, the KFF was introduced to DevBridge members at the Residence to learn more about the Chicago-headquartered technology consulting company with offices in Vilnius and Kaunas.