Flood, Rural Crisis Victims Aided By Fund
Episcopal News Service. November 21, 1985 [85232]
NEW YORK (DPS, Nov. 21) -- The Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief is now receiving donations for relief of victims of mudslides caused by the recent eruption of the Nevada del Ruiz volcano in Colombia.
As was done in the Mexico City earthquake earlier this fall, a team is being sent by Church World Service, relief and development arm of the National Council of Churches, to ascertain needs following the eruption, which wiped out the town of Armero and several nearby villages and may have killed as many as 22,000 people. The Fund will be responding both through Church World Service and through the Diocese of Colombia, and is currently awaiting specific requests.
The Diocese of Colombia has a preaching station in the area devastated by the volcano, and a small Colombian-British community is located there as well. The bishop, the Rt. Rev. Bernardo Merino Botero, told Nancy Marvel, assistant director of the Fund, that he hopes to be able to contact his people in the area this week, but that communication is difficult and the roads are not yet open. In the meantime, a committee of ten has been formed, chaired by the Rev. Thomas Prichard of the Episcopal Church and the South American Missionary Society. According to Merino, their main concerns will be "the orphans, widows and shelter."
Calls for help from West Virginia and Puerto Rico following recent, floods there elicited emergency grants from the Presiding Bishop's Fund.
At the end of October, tropical storm Isabel dropped torrential rain on Puerto Rico. Thirty-three towns experienced severe flooding and mudslides. A preliminary report telexed to Church World Service by Bishop Antonio Ramos, Latin American Secretary for the NCC, indicated more than 500 homes destroyed and 5,000 people in shelters. Ramos added that an ecumenical emergency committee had been created by the Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Disciples, United and Episcopal Churches.
In response to the need, the Presiding Bishop's Fund, which participates in Church World Service, sent a $5,000 emergency grant to assist in relief and rehabilitation work in Puerto Rico.
Closer to home, autumn storms caused devastating floods in West Virginia. A mailgram from diocesan Bishop Robert P. Atkinson requesting aid stated: "Some villages and communities have been entirely destroyed by the floods. Food and clothing need to be purchased immediately, and we have set up Episcopal staging areas whereby we can respond quickly. Our own diocesan conference center has been opened up to be a shelter for the homeless."
An emergency grant of $10,000 was sent to the Diocese of West Virginia, with the money to be distributed through their own Episcopal network and through the West Virginia Council of Churches and its disaster relief network.
Sudden "acts of God" are not the only causes of emergencies. A different kind of emergency is occurring in Iowa, where the governor, in what Bishop Walter C. Righter called "an unprecedented historic action...under a state law never before used" has declared a "state of economic emergency" due to declining land values, drastic cuts in farmers' equity loans, and commodity prices which do not approach the cost of production. Righter reported in an Oct. 15 mailgram that these factors would force lenders to call in their notes after the fall harvest. He added that the psychological and economic pressures had already resulted in the suicides of three farmers.
An emergency grant of $10,000 has been issued to the Iowa Rural Community Crisis Program within the Diocese of Iowa. The grant provided irradiate funding for a staff person to assist in such things as establishing feed "pantries" for livestock threatened with starvation, support food projects for rural families in distress and help farmers faced with foreclosure.
Those wishing to contribute to the disaster relief efforts of the Presiding Bishop's Fund should send their donations to the Fund at: 815 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Checks for Colombian victims should be marked "Colombian Relief."