Actress, former refugee, seeks to assist Syrian migrants - CBS information

Actress Milana Vayntrub attends the twenty second Annual Elton John AIDS foundation's Oscar Viewing celebration on March 2, 2014 in l. a..

Frederick M. Brown/Getty pictures

Milana Vayntrub performs giddy and goofy roles, but she changed into fidgety and bothered as she tried to chill out on a recent holiday in Greece.

The actress most reliable ordinary for her function because the chirpy, blue-shirted "Lily" in a well-liked series of AT&T classified ads became a baby when her fogeys fled Uzbekistan as refugees in 1989. How changed into she supposed to simply sit on the beach, she questioned, when migrants fleeing Syria had been coming ashore a few miles away?

"It felt a little ridiculous that I could do anything but would choose now not to," she pointed out.

19 photographs

The faces of Syria's refugees

lots of of lots of Kurdish refugees flee Syria for Turkey as ISIS threatens them

Vayntrub, 29, deliberately neglected her flight home so she might wrap refugee toddlers in blankets and make sandwiches for the new arrivals. Later, returned in la, she situated CantDoNothing.org, a nonprofit with an easy mission: inspire americans across the planet to do some thing - the rest - to help.

"i am asking everybody to discover primary the way to share your time, your money, your voice to make a difference. assisting can be a lot of things," Vayntrub advised The linked Press in a cellphone interview.

Her initiative, shared under the hashtag #CantDoNothing, has unleashed a buzz on social media, with people from across the planet sharing photographs and videos of their acts of kindness and team spirit.

it be also highlighted Vayntrub's own harrowing adventure from oppression to possibility almost three decades ago, and her emergence as a form of unintentional activist.

although she's most recognizable for her advertising work as a quirky AT&T salesperson, she's won a following for comedy movies including "Junk" and "L!fe happens," as well as Netflix's "Love," HBO's "Silicon Valley," Yahoo's "different area," and her YouTube channel, "LivePrudeGirls."

She's needed to adapt her stand-up events, although, in view that coming back from Greece.

"All my lifestyles kvetches sounded so petty," she observed. "here, what's happening with the refugees doesn't definitely pop up in my feed. or not it's not in my everyday life. however should you trip, you see it."

the use of her iPhone, Vayntrub made a brief video about her vacation-became-mission. It shows dozens of vibrant orange lifestyles jackets littering the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos, where refugees from Syria proceed to make the perilous sea crossing to attain Europe.

From a distance, the jackets "appear to be a container of poppies - a good looking nature scene. then you definately get nearer and recognise the humanity," she referred to. "That turned into the first real shock."

Play Video

CBS night information Refugees assist small town thrive

About 6,000 immigrants who escaped poverty and violence in East Africa have resettled in Lewiston, Maine. When these refugees all started arriving, man...

The video also indicates Vayntrub greeting boats carrying refugees from Turkey as they come ashore. The U.N. refugee company says greater than 1 million americans crossed the Mediterranean in 2015, most in unseaworthy boats, and almost 200,000 have made the crossing thus far this 12 months.

Vayntrub became simplest 2 when her fogeys left their domestic in the former Soviet Union, so she has no reminiscences of her personal flight to an eventual new existence in southern California. "but I do remember feeling like an outsider - that all and sundry's from here, and i'm now not," she pointed out.

presenting the refugees with food, preserve and clinical attention is vital. however Vayntrub - who's planning to seek advice from a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan next month - also worries in regards to the lack of tutorial and cultural alternatives for young migrants.

"i am haunted through who these kids might be in 20 years and not using a exposure to literature or musical gadgets. What kind of grownup does that breed?" she observed.

Responses to the #CantDoNothing flow were distinct and spirited. A YMCA in Richmond, Virginia, accrued new and used baby carriers to send distant places. a school in Santa Monica, California, held a stuffed animal pressure. A poet in Ontario, Canada, wrote free verse in regards to the refugees' plight.

"i am a lots more grateful grownup now," Vayntrub mentioned. "We're so fortunate to take being alive with no consideration."