Lisa Valanti volunteers her time to fight the U.S. embargo and travel restrictions on Cuba. Valanti spoke Sunday at the Oread Friends Meeting House about this summer's planned caravan organized by Pastors for Peace to deliver humanitarian aid to Latin America and the Carribbean.

Summer means another trip to Cuba for two Americans and hundreds of others now driving south across the United States to rendezvous in Texas.

Lisa Valanti, 59, of Pittsburgh, and Bob Abplanalp, 73, of Chicago, are traveling with a large moving van full of supplies, a gift from Canada, to aid Cubans July 19 to July 26. The trip is in protest of the longtime U.S. embargo and American travel restrictions on Cuba, aimed at weakening Fidel Castro’s power there.

“We can afford to put in normal, diplomatic channels,” Valanti said.

More than 130 volunteers are now taking 14 different routes to collect donations and speak in communities about the cause.

“People from all over the world come and participate with us since they want us to restore, basically, our rights,” said Valanti, who is also president of the U.S.-Cuba Sister Cities Association.

The caravan is organized by Pastors for Peace, a ministry of the ecumenical agency Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization. It was created to deliver humanitarian aid to Latin America and Caribbean countries. Ecumenical Christian Ministries at Kansas University has welcomed the volunteers for several years.

Valanti and Abplanalp came to Lawrence on Sunday afternoon and met with a few people at the Oread Friends Meeting House, 1146 Ore. After picking up the vehicle in Canada and driving south in recent days, the pair are scheduled to go to Manhattan and Wichita before driving down to Texas.

Valanti gets passionate when talking about the issue. She’s no fan of President Bush and says that Castro, 80, is now an old man, so fears of him are unrealistic.

The volunteers plan to meet in McAllen, Texas, on Friday before crossing into Mexico and loading their donated trucks and school buses full of medical supplies onto a ship that will head to Cuba.

Valanti said U.S. government agencies have arrested – but never charged – volunteers in years past and while trying to stop the trip. “We have always mounted campaigns, and we have always won,” she said. “We just let government do what they do because we as people are exercising free will.”

The summer heat typically makes a rough trip for Valanti and Abplanalp, especially this year in a moving van without a working air-conditioner.

“The people we help are going through so much more. I consider this sometimes an inconvenience, but it’s not major,” Abplanalp said.