Disaster relief continues work, fund issues grants.

Recent grants from the Emergency Disaster Fund (EDF) of the General Board totaled $155,000 for disaster relief and rebuilding work in Indonesia, Sudan, Florida, and Nebraska.

A grant of $75,000 supports Church World Service (CWS) work in the wake of a devastating earthquake on the island of Nias in Indonesia on March 28. Nearly 700 people were killed and 75,000 displaced. The funds will help provide food, water, shelter, sanitation, and medical supplies. This is a separate appeal from those for the tsunami disaster of last December, but the work is being coordinated with all the emergency response activities in Indonesia following the tsunami.

An allocation of $50,000 has gone to CWS's appeal for those affected by violence in the Darfur region of Sudan. More than two million people have fled their homes to escape looting, house burning, crop destruction, and killings, reports staff of the General Board's Emergency Response and Service Ministries. The funds will assist in providing food, medicine, water, sanitation, agricultural help, and counseling to 500,000 people in refugee camps. In the past 18 months a total of $181,500 has been given from the EDF for relief work in Darfur and in southern Sudan, reports Emergency Response director Roy Winter.

A grant of $25,000 supports a continuing hurricane recovery project in Florida, being carried out by Brethren Disaster Response. The project, which is expected to last three to five years, is currently doing rebuilding and repair work in Pensacola and neighboring Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. It is considered a longterm project because of the magnitude of the hurricanes that hit the state in 2004, said Jane Yount, coordinator of Disaster Response. She added that Escambia County is the poorest in Florida and the 17th poorest in the nation.

The amount of $15,000 continues support of a Disaster Response tornado recovery project in Hallam, Neb. The project is scheduled to close Aug. 6. "We'll need adequate numbers of volunteers to finish four homes that are in various stages of completion," reported Yount.

For the next two months, Disaster Response will be running three rebuilding projects simultaneously, those in Nebraska and Florida and a newly opened project in Ohio. "Our challenge is to secure volunteer teams and project leadership through the summer and beyond," Yount said. "Persons skilled in drywall finishing and finish carpentry will be helpful." The project in Belmont County, Ohio, opened this month, doing repair and rebuilding following three severe floods between Sept. 2004 and Jan. 2005.

The Disaster Response program also is looking for volunteers to join a Tool Coordinator Team to standardize tools in tool trailers used at disaster sites, and to test and replace tools as necessary. The work will be done at the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, Md.

To volunteer at a disaster site or on the Tool Coordinator Team contact your district disaster coordinator or the Disaster Response program at 800-451-4407.

Source: 6/22/2005 Newsline
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