wfn.org | Brethren join coordinating group for mass care operation

[COBNews@aol.com]

Date: Sept. 2, 2005
Contact: Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
V: 847/742-5100  F: 847/742-6103
E-MAIL: _CoBNews@AOL.Com_ (mailto:CoBNews@AOL.Com)

CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN NEWSLINE
Sept. 2, 2005

Church of the Brethren staff member joins coordinating group for mass care
operation

Sept. 2, 2005 (Elgin, IL) --  The Church of the Brethren has a long  history
of responding to disasters, and that experience is being tapped by the
American Red Cross. The Red Cross mass care operation based at their  headquarters
in Washington, D.C., has assembled staff from key disaster response
organizations to coordinate efforts following Hurricane Katrina.

Disaster Child Care, a program of the Church of the Brethren General  Board's
Emergency Response/Service Ministries, has been asked to be a part of  this
vital group. Roy Winter, executive director of the Brethren Service Center
 and
the Emergency Response/Service Ministries in New Windsor, Md., will be
working out of the Red Cross headquarters on an as-needed basis.

Disaster Child Care also has been asked to deploy volunteers to family
assistance centers by both FEMA and the American Red Cross. Details for this
deployment are being finalized.

The Service Ministries Distribution Center at New Windsor has sent an
additional shipment of relief material to Louisiana this afternoon that included
Church World Service blankets.

Disaster coordinators for the Church of the Brethren districts are ready
to 
respond when the flood waters recede, and when clean up and rebuilding can
begin. "Volunteers are asked to be patient,
since it may be months before the  community is ready to invite us in to do
rebuilding," said Jane Yount, Brethren	Disaster Response coordinator. "While
we cannot send volunteers to Louisiana or  Mississippi now, we have two other
disaster response projects that desperately  need volunteers--Pensacola, Fla.,
and Glencoe, Ohio.â

Stan Noffsinger, general secretary of the General Board, also said that
congregations may consider preparing for possible opportunities to house
refugees. He anticipates that housing
initiatives will be put in place by  federal and state governments, and that
churches will be invited to take part.

"Now is the time for patience," Noffsinger said. Emergency personnel and  aid
workers on the ground "need our prayerful support, and our encouragement,"
he added. "They are all working at
a feverish pitch to do the right  thing."

For more about the Church of the Brethren response to Hurricane Katrina,  see
_www.brethren.org_ (http://www.brethren.org)  or
_www.brethrendisasterresponse.org_ (http://www.brethrendisasterresponse.org) .

The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to
continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its faith  in
community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith
traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrates its  300th
anniversary in 2008. It counts about 130,000 members across the United
States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Brazil,
the 
Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nigeria.

# # #

For more information contact:

Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News Services
Church of the  Brethren General Board
1451 Dundee Ave.
Elgin, IL 60120
847-742-5100  ext. 260
_cbrumbaugh-cayford_gb@brethren.org_
(mailto:cbrumbaugh-cayford_gb@brethren.org)

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The  Church of the Brethren Newsline is produced by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford,
 director of news services for the Church of the Brethren General Board.
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