Episcopal Press and News
World Hunger Receipts at 'Record-Breaking Rate'
Diocesan Press Service. February 19, 1975 [75076]
GREENWICH, Conn. -- "Receipts are coming in at a record-breaking rate" for the relief of world hunger, according to Dr. Lindley M. Franklin, Jr., treasurer, in a report made to the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church by board of the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief.
To date approximately $400, 000 earmarked for world hunger has been received in response to Presiding Bishop John M. Allin's special Epiphany appeal and to special appeals issued by many bishops in their own dioceses.
The board's report to Council indicated that " 100 percent of this will be allocated " for hunger relief and none of it will be used for administrative or promotional expenses. The board, at its February 17 meeting, allocated money for feeding programs in Bangladesh and India, and for isolated American Indian families and individuals on Navajo reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Allocations were voted for "longer range responses to hunger problems " in the Sahelian zone of West Africa, the Sudan, Indochina, El Salvador, and Honduras. The board adopted the following guidelines for the allocation of world hunger funds: purchase of food; operation of food distribution and/or feeding programs; food-for-work projects; purchase of seeds, agricultural tools, irrigation systems, well digging; refugee programs where provision for basic human need is crucial; nutrition programs ; maternal and child care programs; and communication among the U.S. constituency concerning the nature of the problem, legislative issues, and guidelines for acting. Grants were approved for the Kentucky Interchurch Disaster Relief and for the Interfaith Council of Xenia, Ohio, two ecumenical agencies which are responding to tornado disasters in their communities last year.
The board voted to continue its support of the relief and rehabilitation work of the World Council of Churches; Church World Service (CWS), the relief agency of the National Council of Churches; Agricultural Missions; Heifer Project International; Interchurch Medical Assistance; Technoserve; and CODEL.
Most of the Episcopal Church's relief work is channeled through CWS, of which the Episcopal Church is a fully participating member.
In addition to hunger allocations to CWS, the Presiding Bishop's Fund supports other special programs of CWS, such as assistance to Chilean refugees; a community development project in the high Andes and the high jungle of Peru; the Indochina Fund for Reconciliation and Reconstruction; Vietnam Christian Service; the program of the Middle East Council of Churches among Palestinian refugees; and support of a Haitian Refugee Information Center in Miami.
The board of the Presiding Bishop's Fund is cooperating with the Executive Council's Hunger Task Force, which has initiated the design of two regional training conferences -- one in Denver, Colo., the first week in March, for representatives from Provinces 5, 6, 7, 8, and some overseas dioceses, and the second in Louisville, Ky., during the week of March 16, with representatives from Provinces 1, 2, 3, and 4.