What's the cheapest way to ship Boxes from NY to CA?

Whats the cheapest way to ship big boxes from the US to Africa?

• a friend of mine works for a ministry- African Children Outreach and needs to ship about 45 big boxes to Africa by Christmas. The USPS quoted about $240/box. This is a non profit ministry that feeds over 550 orphans in Rwanda an d Burundi each day and are sending Christmas shoe boxes to the children who until now will have never recieved a present. They are over $3000 short of the shipping cost. Can someone let me know if you know any other way to ship or if you know a ministry that may would like to partner to cover shipping? Thanms in advance. My email is imtreysmama@aol

• Answer:

  You have left it a bit late to ship via the cheapest option which is in a container on a ship then overland to the destination. You can rent part container space as well as a whole one, this is by far the cheapest option but does take some weeks to arrive. Alternatively try asking an airline if they have space to transport them for you, using the "it's for charity card" and telling them you will give them credit in your advertising etc for doing it. Another option could be the military if they are flying those routes. UPS and DHL will do it of course but as you say are expensive. yet anther way is to contact some of the big aid organisations who work in these areas, they might have a flight going out and have space for your shipment. You will need to itemise all the contents of the boxes for customs purposes and need to check on whether duty will be payable, sadly it often is even on aid goods and may have to do this at the time of loading to ensure what you say is in the boxes (you would anyway have to do this at UPS and DHL for the same reason). Flying them out is far quicker if you want to meet a Christmas deadline, all other routes, overland etc will probably not arrive in time now. Try the biggest aid agencies first for they have flights going all over the place another place you could try is the Rwandan aid organisation to see if they have anything available or might know a route for you http://www.rwanda-aid.org/ Good luck.