VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP) — National Ministries of the American Baptist Churches USA has given a $100,000 grant to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to continue building houses for those displaced 2 ½ years ago by Hurricane Katrina.
CBF has been working in several areas affected by the storm. The latest grant will help build homes in Pearlington, Miss., a small town decimated by the storm but often overlooked because it is a few miles inland from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and north and east of New Orleans, whose destruction garnered international headlines.
CBF, in partnership with the Pearlington Recovery Center, has helped rebuild homes and lives in the area since the storm, which made landfall in August 2005. Pearlington still needs at least 70 houses rebuilt, according to CBF disaster-response director Charles Ray.
“There are 70 families that want to come back that still own land but can't find the money to build a house,” he said, according to a Fellowship news release. “Our mission is to help those with the most need and the least resources, and that's what we'll do here.”
With the ABC National Ministries grant, the Fellowship will erect and finish the exteriors of up to 10 houses. After the foundation, exterior walls and roof are completed, the homeowners will work with Pearlington Recovery Center to obtain grant money for completing the interior work.
“I'm very pleased that we are able to continue our partnership in response to Pearlington's need,” said Kenneth George, ABC National Ministries' national coordinator for direct human services. “It's a community that has not received a lot of press attention but has as much of a need as other parts of the Gulf.”
“CBF disaster response is grateful for this gift to our continuing efforts to meet human need in Pearlington,” said CBF Global Missions Coordinator Rob Nash. “This gift represents another step in the ongoing cooperation between American Baptists and Fellowship Baptists that enables us to do far more together than we could ever do separately. People are still reeling from the tragedy of Katrina — and CBF and ABC are still present together with them even almost 2 ½ years after the hurricane.”
Nearly 2,000 CBF supporters have gone to Pearlington to work since 2005, and continued volunteer labor will be crucial to meeting the grant's maximum goal, according to CBF officials. “We need people to serve now as much as ever before,” Ray said.
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