Brethren Service Center contributes to school shipments for Gulf Coast.

Church World Service (CWS) is distributing grants totaling $599,095 to 13 schools in Mississippi and Louisiana badly damaged by last year's devastating hurricanes. In addition, CWS also sent material assistance valued at $110,170 to the schools, including 7,830 "Gift of the Heart" Kits (school and health), 1,500 blankets, and five recreation boxes donated by UNICEF.

The grant program was made possible by a generous donation from Diakonie Emergency Aid, a German faith-based humanitarian aid agency. The material aid was sent from the distribution center of Service Ministries--a program of the Church of the Brethren General Board at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md.

The schools will use the funds to purchase student and teacher supplies, computers, audio-visual equipment, books, musical equipment, and furniture. The 13 schools currently have 15,673 students and 1,839 teachers. The schools are Martin Behrman Elementary (Algiers Charter Schools) in New Orleans; Forked Island/E. Broussard Elementary in Abbeville, La.; East Hancock Elementary in Kiln, Miss.; Franklin Elementary in New Orleans; Gulfview Elementary in Kiln; Hancock High School in Kiln; McMain High School in New Orleans; Orange Grove Elementary in Gulfport, Miss.; Pascagoula (Miss.) School District; Resurrection Middle High School in Pascagoula; St. Thomas Elementary in Long Beach, Miss.; Watkins Elementary in Lake Charles, La.; and Westwood Elementary in Westlake, La.

"Although this has been an exciting and rewarding opportunity to be able to administer this grant program, the sad reality is that out of the 200 schools that were identified, the destruction was so bad that only 13 were able to apply for this program," said CWS Disaster Response and Recovery liaison Lesli Remaly, who served as coordinator of the grant application process.

"Most of the students who attend our school are on the free or reduced lunch program, which means they come from households earning around $16,000 or less per year," said Michelle Lewis, Human Resource manager for Algiers Charter Schools. Lewis said that many of the students recently returned to the area after attending well-equipped schools in other parts of the country unaffected by the hurricanes, mainly in Texas.

At Orange Grove Elementary, 90 percent of students come from low-income families. Stephanie Schepens, a teacher, said many children are in homes with mold conditions and in need of extensive repairs. Some are waiting for FEMA temporary housing trailers; some have already been denied. "To see things new and shiny means so much to them," she said. "The school supplies and blankets were like a Christmas some of them never had."

In addition to shipments aiding Hurricane Katrina survivors, other recent shipments of material aid from the Brethren Service Center include a CWS container for Ghana weighing 8,354 pounds with blankets, school kits, wheelchairs, and walkers; a Global Assistance 40-foot container of medical supplies for the Republic of Congo; a Lutheran World Relief 40-foot container to Nicaragua filled with 525 cartons of school kits; and blankets for the homeless and disadvantaged in Salt Lake City and Binghamton, N.Y.

Source: 3/15/2006 Newsline
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