Fund Responds To Emergencies
Episcopal News Service. January 25, 1979 [79014]
New York, N.Y. -- Year-end disasters -- natural and man-made -- were met with emergency grants totalling $16,500 from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, of the Episcopal Church.
In mid-December, torrential rains drove 5,000 people from their homes west of Phoenix in the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona. The diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. Joseph M. Harte, immediately appealed to the Fund for aid to join an Arizona Ecumenical Council effort to provide food and blankets to the hard hit area. The Fund responded with $5,000 grant.
December tropical storms also created a serious food crisis in Vietnam and the Fund sent $2,500 to assist relief efforts launched by Church World Service, (CWS), the relief arm of the National Council of Churches.
At the same time, the Fund received an urgent CWS appeal for aid to refugees in the south central African Republic of Zambia. That nation harbors refugees from both Angola and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and the refugee camps are often a target of raids from the armed forces of those nations. In response to December raids, relief agencies throughout the world joined together in an effort to supply food, medicine, shelter and health services to the refugees. $4,000 was dispatched from the Fund through CWS for medical supplies.
A typhoon with core winds of 160 mph struck the Northern Philippines in late December causing severe damage to the crop and the agricultural system. The Fund sent an immediate emergency grant of $5,000 to the diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. Richard Abellon to begin the rebuilding.