News & Updates | Posted Wednesday, September 4, 2013
With a goal of creating 15 to 20 CWS Emergency Clean-up Buckets, First Christian Church, Fullerton, Calif., assembled double the amount this summer. Parishioners donated the full cost of a bucket, gave donations toward a bucket or brought supplies to fill buckets and created 37 buckets for emergency response within the US. “We started the project just before the devastating …
News & Updates | Posted Wednesday, September 4, 2013
September is National Preparedness Month, a good time to consider how to be prepared to care. I write as someone who has been involved in disaster preparedness for more than 30 years, as a volunteer and as a professional in the Air Force, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and now Church World Service. Start by taking a personal inventory. How …
News & Updates | Posted Tuesday, September 3, 2013
When Bill Recker and Carma Agan lost their Buck Creek, Iowa, home to flash flooding in June, they would have faced a lonely struggle to recover if it weren’t for the Delaware County Disaster Recovery Committee. With support from Church World Service, that community-based group is “working on multiple fronts with these folks to generate enough support to get them …
News & Updates | Posted Wednesday, August 28, 2013
At Granger United Methodist Church in Medina, Ohio, women’s groups and children make and sell beautiful greeting cards with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the CWS Blankets+ program. When the greeting card ministry started in 2002, it yielded $200 from the sale of homemade Mother’s and Father’s Day cards. By 2012 it had expanded to a full range …
News & Updates | Posted Thursday, August 22, 2013
Appeal # 627Y Appeal Goal: $120,000 Received to Date: $27,000 Situation: Throughout the spring and summer of 2013, numerous emergencies have affected communities throughout the United States. Many communities have suffered the destructive impact of tornadoes. The largest were in Oklahoma, striking the Oklahoma City area over a period of several days. Affected communities were Carney, El Reno, Moore, Norman, …
News & Updates | Posted Thursday, August 15, 2013
The American Red Cross has awarded Church World Service $305,395 for its work to help communities that are struggling to recover following Superstorm Sandy. “There are many communities in the storm’s impact area where people are struggling,” CWS Associate Director for Emergency Response, Barry Shade said. “We help bring communities together so that everyone has a chance to recover, and …
News & Updates | Posted Wednesday, August 14, 2013
The fight against hunger is part of our DNA at CWS, and it is being re-affirmed with a new recommitment in our programs and among our staff. As part of that effort, United Methodist photographer Paul Jeffrey and I are starting work on a book on global hunger – the third of a “humanitarian trilogy,” for Seabury Books, an imprint …
News & Updates | Posted Wednesday, June 19, 2013
A visit last week to the Ironbound District of Newark, N.J., by Church World Service Emergency Response Specialists Joann Hale and Susanne Gilmore illustrated CWS’s commitment to finding disaster survivors having the hardest time recovering and to making sure their recovery needs are met. Hale and Gilmore spent the past two weeks visiting five southern and four northern New Jersey …
News & Updates | Posted Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Revised Appeal Goal: $120,000 Received to Date: $27,000 Situation: While severe storms continue to pound many of the U.S. Midwestern and Eastern states, dry conditions in the West have resulted in dangerous wildfires in California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. Of immediate concern is the Black Forest Fire in El Paso County north of Colorado Springs, Colo. Since it started …
News & Updates | Posted Wednesday, June 12, 2013
When you hear the term “faith-based humanitarianism” (admittedly, a mouthful), what do you think of? Do you think it means trying to promote a certain religious faith? Does it mean passing out religious tracts along with blankets and cleanup buckets during an emergency? Or does it mean that, if you work for a faith-based organization, the foundation on which your …