The freight, all 20,040 pounds of it, was loaded aboard a truck Tuesday at Jobbers Moving and Storage in Bismarck.

Their breath steaming in the unheated warehouse, coverall-clad workers toted duffels packed tight with quilts and crutches, suitcases filled with school supplies, medical supplies and clothes, and boxes labeled in Spanish with black marker.

In anywhere from 25 to 35 days, after traveling by truck to New York and ship to Guatemala, the freight will arrive at port there and wait for its final check through customs. After it clears, the clothes and wheelchairs and shoes will be trucked to the God's Child Project in Antigua, and volunteers will sort through the bags and bundles once again to organize it all for distribution to the children served by the God's Child Project, families, homeless people, villagers and others in need, said Jena Gullo, community educator for the project.

This volume is about one year's worth of donations to the project, said Nancy Feist, office manager for the God's Child Project. Another truckload was sent last year in May, she said. Arrangements are made for shipment whenever the volume reaches a container load, she said.

Shipping costs of about $10,000 have been covered by benefactors, she said.

Across the state and even from other states, individuals, parishes and youth groups brought in donations of good used clothing and shoes. Medical supplies donated included gauze, surgical kits, dental, audiology and ophthamology equipment, and over-the-counter medications, walkers, canes, even an incubator. Quilting groups contributed their handmade blankets.

On Saturday, 74 people showed up at the God's Child Project office at 721 Memorial Highway in Bismarck from as far away as Williston, Turtle Lake, Mercer and Dickinson, as well as Bismarck-Mandan, to load the items and take them to Jobbers, Feist said.

The God's Child Project, founded by Bismarck native Patrick Atkinson, serves 2,600 children, as well as 8,500 families and homeless people - in all, about 11,000, Feist said.

For more information, call the project office at 255-7956.