wfn.org | ABCUSA World Relief Committee Approves Funding

["SCHRAMM, Richard" <Richard.Schramm@abc-usa.org>]

American Baptist News Service (6/20/02)--The American Baptist Churches'
World Relief Committee has voted to fund dozens of relief and development
programs and projects overseas and within the U.S. 

The committee, which met in semiannual session here today, establishes
policy for distribution of funds from the One Great Hour of Sharing
Offering.  Projects were presented by American Baptist International
Ministries, American Baptist National Ministries and Baptist World Aid of
the Baptist World Alliance.

Among major funding determined by the committee:

Overseas: $30,000 to fund construction of Baptist House, a new facility of
the Liberia Baptist Missionary and Educational Convention; $22,775 for the
Baptist Union of Bulgaria's Berkovitsa Project, which is ministering to a
gypsy population; the second of two $27,778 grants to assist Baptist World
Aid relief efforts in North Korea, hard hit by a series of floods and
droughts; $31,108 over two years to support the Christian Home for Orphans
of the Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptists of Russian Federation;
$28,080 to the Union of Baptist Churches in Rwanda to assist orphans and
widows in need.

In the U.S.: $120,000 over three years to assist Habitat for Humanity in
providing adequate new housing in Wyoming and McDowell counties in West
Virginia, both hard hit by flooding in July 2002; $45,000 over three years
for the Boston Higher Education Resource Center, a ministry to inner city
young people and other low-income adults that supports them in higher
education and adult basic education; $45,000 over three years to the
Brockton (Mass.) Higher Education Resource Center, which provides
supplemental educational, vocational and spiritual support services to
children and youth, with an emphasis on computer technology; $15,000 to the
Pioneer Valley Project, Springfield, Mass., an inner city employment and
housing ministry; $15,000 to Anna's Re-Entry House, Scranton, Pa., which
helps women transition from prison life to community life; $22,140 to fund
Ministerio Despertar, San Juan, Puerto Rico, a ministry of counseling,
education and support for women who are victims of, or at risk of, domestic
violence; $15,000 to the Bob Burdette Center, Inc., Charleston, W.V., an
outreach to children in an economically depressed neighborhood; $15,000 to
the National Coalition for Burned Churches to help in the rebuilding of 25
burned churches this year.

In his report, World Relief Officer Charles W. Sydnor noted that One Great
Hour of Sharing giving in 2001 was the highest ever--$3,825,614.30,
including $1,111,855.25 designated in response to the Sept. 11 tragedies and
$273,318.29 given in response to flooding in West Virginia.

02ABN90

American Baptist News Service: Office of Communication, American Baptist
Churches USA, P.O. Box 851, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0851; (610)768-2077; fax:
(610)768-2320; www.abc-usa.org; richard.schramm@abc-usa.org