Residents of British Columbia's Lower Mainland seem to be freer with their cash than they are with their time.

The Red Cross is thanking the public for donating more than $250,000 to help refugees in the Balkans over the past two months. Spokesperson Adrienne Bakker says the Red Cross Appeal has received an average of $20,000 a week.

But B.C.'s attorney general says few people have come forward to help the Kosovo refugees who will soon arrive in British Columbia. Ujal Dosnajh stresses there is no cost, and no requirement to put refugees in homes.

Mr. Dosanjh says he is looking for more than 200 sponsors who can provide emotional and psychological support. Church groups, schools, and businesses can offer their assistance to the government.

"Kosovars" is the term generally used for people of Albanian ethnic heritage who live in the southern Yugolsavian province of Kosovo.

In Calgary, Alberta, for example, the Unitarian Church is sponsoring a group of refugees. This means everything from finding clothes and shelter to finding schools for the children and jobs for their parents.

One member of the church, Thordis Gutnick, will be spending the next couple of months teaching English to the refugees. She is looking forward to it as she says it will allow her to show them what a wonderful country Canada can be. She is also looking forward to discussing the NATO bombing with them. Ms. Gutnick has been opposed to the bombing since it began on March 24. She wants to hear the opinions of the refugees and try and better understand what is happening in Yugoslavia.

So far nearly 5,000 Kosovo refugees have come to Canada. But they won't be the last displaced Kosovars headed here. More refugees will continue to arrive under Canada's family reunification plan.

`` Some 2,000 people have been identified as potentially eligible for that program. Of those, 400 have already arrived," says Raphael Girard, Canada's ambassador to Yugoslavia.

Canada has set no limit for the number of refugees eligible for the family reunification plan.

When the airlift ends Wednesday, Canada will have fulfilled its pledge to accept 5,000 refugees. Officials say Ottawa won't take in more unless requested by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Out of 135,000 spaces for refugees offered by the international community, only 55,000 have been transported out of the region in the last month.

The ambassador said that there is anxiety among the Kosovar leadership that by taking refugees so far afield "many of these people will not return and in so doing Yugoslavia President Slobodan Milosevic's agenda (of getting rid of ethnic Albanians living in the southern Yugoslavian province of Kosovo) will be achieved."

In total, 1.6 million people have fled Kosovo as Yugoslavian Serb forces purge the province of ethnic Albanians. This weekend, 18,000 people arrived in neighboring Albania and Macedonia.

1. Whom or what the Red Cross does Spokesperson Adrienne Bakker say Appeal has received an average of $20,000 a week?