Presiding Bishop's Fund Approves Grants
Diocesan Press Service. November 10, 1975 [75400]
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- The Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief of the Episcopal Church approved emergency grants totaling $98,126.60 during October for relief and development projects.
The Fund approved the extension of the West Coast Resettlement Office for Indochina Refugees until the end of 1975 with a grant of $5,000, as well as approving the final payment of $2,785 for a previous commitment. The Rev. Samir Habiby, Garden Grove, Calif., is part-time coordinator for the office. The West Coast Office has assisted in resettling more than 600 Southeast Asian refugees who were temporarily sheltered at Camp Pendleton, Calif., Fort Chaffee, Ark., and Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.
Also approved was a $4,500 grant, through Church World Service, for the Haitian Refugee Center, Miami, for subsistence while the refugees await the results of their litigation.
Three emergency grants were made for feeding programs among the American Indians in the southwest. The Navajo Episcopal Council, with headquarters at Good Shepherd Mission, Window Rock, Ariz., was given $3,000 for its feeding program. The Phoenix Indian Center received $2,000 in the funding action, and the Hualapai Tribal Council in Peach Springs, Ariz., received $5,000 for its feeding program for the elderly.
The Fund approved the channeling of a check in the amount of $161.90 from the Church of Our Saviour, Roslindale, Mass., designated for Oxfam-America, a Boston-based agency which sponsors an annual 24-hour fast at Thanksgiving to fight hunger. The dollars not spent for food on November 20, 1975, by participants in the fast will go to Oxfam projects to help small - scale farmers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The Episcopal Diocese of Puerto Rico was given an emergency grant of $2,500 for relief work following a recent hurricane.
Two grants totaling $4,457 were approved for Saint Andrew's Theological Seminary, Manila, in the Diocese of the Central Philippines in support of their Bayanihan Program of animal husbandry and gardening. Seminary students, working at least one hour daily, assist full-time employees in cleaning and maintaining the school buildings and in taking care of the pigs, chickens, rabbits, quail, and the gardens, for which one peso an hour is credited toward room and board.
A grant of $12,000 was made to a sewing machine project in Brazil to enable a small company purchase 100 machines so that citizens can learn a craft and earn a living. The Episcopal Diocese of Guatemala was given a grant from the Presiding Bishop's Fund in the amount of $744.70 for a project to supply eyeglass prescriptions for the needy poor in that country, with an additional grant of $700 coming from the Executive Council's Social Ministry and Concerns office.
A $5,000 grant was made, through Church World Service, for urgent food needs in Ethiopia, at the request of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The Rural Training Center of Kenya was given a grant of $40,000, channeled through Church World Service, for its extensive program dealing with nutrition, adult basic education, and agricultural training.
The Episcopal Diocese of Nicaragua was given a grant of $3, 000 for the interim funding of the Center for Family Orientation in Managua. In a neighboring diocese, El Salvador, a grant of $4,978, channeled through the National Council of Churches' Agricultural Missions program, will provide emergency help for the diocese's development project, CREDHO, which involves a reading program, a clinic, an agricultural school, and a psychological orientation center.
As of November 1, receipts to the Presiding Bishop's Fund total $2,609,802.40, more than twice the amount for all of 1974. About $808, 000 remains in the legacy from the Diocese of Rochester which was designed for hunger relief. Expenditures in 1975 to November 1 total $1,678,777.76.