Seven Join 'Fund' Staff
Episcopal News Service. September 4, 1980 [80300]
NEW YORK -- Four priests and three lay people have been added to the staff of the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief thereby completing the structure for the rapidly-expanding migration and refugee ministry to which the Fund has been committed.
The Rev. Gene T. White, a former bank officer and a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, has been named information and communication officer for migration concerns at the Fund's Episcopal Church Center offices. White will work with the assistant director for migration affairs, Mrs. Robert Dawson, and as liaison to the Communication staff in developing resource material for sponsors and educational material to help the whole Church become involved in refugee ministry.
He is a graduate of Hobart College and the General Theological Seminary.
Under plans presented to the Executive Council and financed largely through federal resettlement funds, the Fund also employs regional coordinators who work directly with parishes and dioceses to develop and support refugee ministries.
The Ven. Courtland Moore, archdeacon of the Diocese of Dallas, has agreed to undertake the regional post for the vast, southeastern and south central United States. This region, consisting of 30 dioceses, has been heavily involved in refugee matters with large concentrations of refugees in Texas, Louisiana and Florida.
Moore, in an arrangement with the Diocese of Dallas, will devote two-thirds of his time to the refugee and migration ministry while continuing to serve as archdeacon to the diocese.
A native of Oklahoma and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Moore has been a member of the diocesan staff since 1971. He served parishes in Oklahoma and Texas from 1953 until his appointment as canon to the ordinary.
His counterpart of the west coast will be the Rev. M. Fletcher Davis who is currently rector of St. Anselm's, Garden Grove, Calif., a parish that operates one of the biggest refugee ministries in the country. In a 'give-back' arrangement with the parish and diocese he will continue his parochial connection but will devote full time to the refugee and undocumented alien ministries for the dioceses of the Province of the Pacific.
Davis, a native of Cleveland, is a graduate of Harvard and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. He has served most of his ministry in the California dioceses except for a year as a missionary in Botswana.
The legal work of the fund will be directed by a priest-attorney who has long been involved in this field on both coasts. He is the Rev. John McD. Corn. Corn will work with the federal departments concerned with migration issues, monitor legislation, rules changes and court decisions in the rapidly-changing field and provide legal advice to the concerned church agencies.
He is a graduate of Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, Georgetown University Law School and the General Seminary. He practiced law in Washington before being ordained in 1964.
The person who works directly with sponsoring congregations and organizations is a six-year veteran of the Church Center staff. Lloyd I. Jones, a native New Yorker and graduate of Pace College, spent six years in the Center personnel office as administrator of benefits and insurance. As sponsorship development officer, he works with Mrs. Dawson and Fr. White in recruiting and supporting sponsors for the more than 6,000 refugees that the Fund hopes to place this year.
The Fund's board of directors pinpointed a need to develop the network of diocesan world relief people and the task has been handed over to a couple well-known throughout the Church. John C. Goodbody, former communication executive at the Center, and his wife Hattie hope to have trained, designated people in each diocese ready to coordinate local programs, help with drives and keep the Fund staff appraised of changing conditions. The Goodbodys will also prepare educational and promotional material for the general work of the Fund with the Center communication staff.