World Relief Grants Announced
Diocesan Press Service. December 14, 1972 [72203]
GREENWICH, Conn. (DPS) -- The Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, meeting here Dec. 12-14, heard from its Committee on World Relief and Interchurch Aid that receipts to the fund for 1972 are ahead of 1971, and the total may set a record. As of November 30, receipts total $634,824.98. Receipts for all of 1971 were $593, 166.80.
The committee announced that emergency grants for the relief of suffering have been made as follows:
o $5, 000 to the World Council of Churches for an emergency rehabilitation program in Burundi, Central Africa, where tens of thousands of persons were killed in an intertribal massacre last spring. The grant is for housing and educational facilities for widows and children.
o $5, 000 to the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Philippines for emergency relief in an extended drought on the island of Mindanao.
o $3,000 to the World Council of Churches for famine relief in Papua/New Guinea.
o $1,000 to the Diocese of Polynesia, of the Church of the Province of New Zealand, for relief following a severe hurricane in the Fiji Islands.
o An additional $2,500 each to the Episcopal Dioceses of Bethlehem (Pa.), Central New York and Central Pennsylvania for flood relief, bringing the total to $20,000 each to the three dioceses.
o An additional grant of $2, 000 to the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York for flood relief in the Olean/Salamanca area.
The committee reported that the refugee office has taken responsibility for the resettlement of 20 stateless Asian persons recently expelled from Uganda, and congregations in five dioceses have extended sponsorship to eight cases including both individuals and family units.
The Council approved the committee's request for issuing a call to the church for contributions, during Advent and extending through Lent, to the Presiding Bishop's Fund for medical aid to victims of the war in Southeast Asia. The Council approved a grant of $1,000 to the World Council of Churches for its programs of medical assistance in North Vietnam and to the Provisional Revolutionary Government, the Federacion Unie Unationale Khmer, and Pathet Lao in South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.