Newsline: EDF grants support disaster rebuilding in Alabama, food crisis in Africa

[CoBNews <CoBNews@brethren.org>]

Newsline: Church of the Brethren News Service, News Director Cheryl 
Brumbaugh-Cayford, 800-323-8039 ext. 260, cobnews@brethren.org

EDF grants support disaster rebuilding in Alabama, food crisis in Africa

(May 24, 2012) Elgin, IL --Brethren Disaster Ministries has received an 
Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) grant for $17,000 to continue its work in Arab, 
Ala., following an EF 4 tornado that hit the town on April 27 last year. In 
another recent EDF grant, $8,000 has been given to aid food security in the 
Sahel region of north Africa.

In other news from Brethren Disaster Ministries, associate director Zach 
Wolgemuth has been elected to the board of National VOAD (Voluntary 
Organizations Active in Disaster).

At the rebuilding project site in Alabama, in the area of Arab, more than 200 
volunteers have given more than 1,400 days of service to build two new homes 
and repair 20 others. Brethren Disaster Ministries' current case load includes 
one additional new home and approximately six home repairs. The grant will 
underwrite operational expenses related to volunteer support including housing, 
food, and travel expenses incurred onsite as well as volunteer training, tools, 
and equipment needed for rebuilding and repair. Previous EDF allocations to the 
project total $30,000.

The allocation of $8,000 responds to a Church World Service (CWS) appeal 
following unusually low rainfall, low crop production, and food insecurity in 
the Sahel region of north Africa. Also a factor in the food insecurity is 
political strife/violence in north and west Africa. This complex humanitarian 
crisis affects more than 15 million people. The Church of the Brethren grant 
supports CWS as it leads a response to the emergency working with partner 
organization Christian Aid in providing emergency food assistance, seeds, and 
other emergency assistance to more than 83,000 people in Burkina Faso, Mali, 
Niger, and Senegal.

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 celebrated its 
300th anniversary in 2008. It counts some 123,000 members across the United 
States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Nigeria, 
Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and India.

># # #

>For more information contact:

>Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
>Director of News Services
>Church of the Brethren
>1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120
>800-323-8039 ext. 260
>cobnews@brethren.org