SOS Appeal Goal Is Set
Diocesan Press Service. October 10, 1963 [XIV-3]
Episcopalians will share with other communions in a special appeal for $950,000 during the Thanksgiving season to finance the 1964 Share Our Substance program, through which more than 10 million of the world's hungry will receive life-sustaining U. S. food stocks.
The goal for the coming SOS appeal was announced by the Rev. Canon Almon R. Pepper, chairman of the executive committee of Church World Service and director of National Council's Department of Christian Social Relations.
Canon Pepper also explained the change in the SOS appeal's name. It is now "Share Our Substance" rather than "Share Our Surplus". "This change reflects a desire to express the spirit of basic sharing between the American Christian communion and our friends abroad. We should not be sharing just what we have left over."
The SOS program is part of the world-wide Freedom from Hunger Campaign of the United Nations. With the cooperation of such other relief groups as CARE, Catholic Relief, Heifer Project, Inc., and many others, the campaign is aimed not only at temporary relief for needy people in time of disaster, but also in aiding the development of unproductive lands and peoples to enable them to build a future in which they will not need relief.
An inspiring example of such aid was recently reported by the Anglican Bishop of Korea, the Rt. Rev. John C. S. Daly. With grants from the Freedom from Hunger Campaign the diocese is undertaking several projects.
The Bishop stated: "In one project we are enabling 12 landless young men to establish farms. They are a part of our family who have grown up as our sons since they were orphaned in the Korean war. We have linked them with 50 refugee families who have built a dam to reclaim land from the sea on which a hundred families will be able to grow sufficient rice to support themselves.
"Our funds have supplied the material to build the dam gate for this project. CARE is supplying food for the refugees and farm tools and will see them through until they are standing on their own feet. We are feeding our own lads, and we have also given them some church land, seed, fertilizer, and tools to grow vegetables and other dry field crops. We have given them rabbits and pigs, and we have given them an orchard with some 3,000 apple and peach trees," the bishop reported.
"The Korean is one of the most independent, spirited persons in the world," Bishop Daly declared, "and this sort of help is very highly appreciated. In years to come, please God, the people of Korea will be able to face their own crises of typhoon and flood without appealing overseas for help. "