US actress sets out to help refugees

Milana Vayntrub plays giddy and goofy roles, but she was fidgety and troubled as she tried to relax on a recent vacation in Greece.

The actress best known for her role as the chirpy, blue-shirted “Lily” in a popular series of AT&T commercials was a toddler when her parents fled Uzbekistan as refugees in 1989. How was she supposed to just sit on the beach, she wondered, when migrants fleeing Syria were coming ashore a few miles away

“It felt a little ridiculous that I could do something but would choose not to,” she said.

Vayntrub, 29, deliberately missed her flight home so she could wrap refugee babies in blankets and make sandwiches for the new arrivals. Later, back in Los Angeles, she founded cantdonothing.org, a nonprofit with a simple mission: Encourage people around the planet to do something — anything — to help.

“I’m asking everyone to find simple ways to share your time, your money, your voice to make a difference. Helping can be a lot of things,” Vayntrub said in a telephone interview.

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

It’s also highlighted Vayntrub’s own harrowing journey from oppression to opportunity nearly three decades ago, and her emergence as a sort of accidental activist.