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Gifts, Animals Support Hunger Project

Episcopal News Service. November 11, 1982 [82238]

The Rev. Joseph C. Neiman, Editor, The Western Michigan Churchman

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (DPS, Nov. 11) -- Over $50,000 in donations toward the relief of world hunger were announced during the 108th annual convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan, which met in late October at the Cathedral of Christ the King here.

The majority of the donations and the two dozen animals blessed by the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison before the convention Eucharist went to Heifer Project International, a non-denominational hunger relief program which ships breeding stock animals to selected needy families in various Darts of the world.

"I'm especially pleased with these gifts of love," Bennison commented, "particularly at this time when economic conditions in Michigan are so distressful." Bennison blessed the goats, sheep, pigs, and heifers assembled by the parishes and missions on the cathedral grounds before being loaded into special trucks sent by Heifer Project to collect them.

In addition to the animals and cash donations raised, 25 congregations reported participating in local hunger relief projects ranging from the daily soup kitchen in Grand Rapids to the emergency food baskets in Portage, Mich.

Reacting to the severe economic conditions, the clergy and lay delegates from the 57 Western Michigan congregations rejected the proposed 1983 budget for the diocese and agreed instead upon an alternative figure, some $70,000 lower submitted by the delegates from St. Andrew's Church in Big Rapids. The convention authorized the Executive Council to work with this figure and determine the spending priorities.

In other action the convention delegates adopted proposed new policy and guidelines for the diaconate, embraced tithing as "the minimum standard of giving for Episcopalians," and renamed the diocesan newspaper as The Western Michigan Episcopalian.