RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Baptist Foundation has awarded grants totaling $82,500 to nine Baptist partners in Virginia to fund an array of projects, from prison ministry to youth programs.
“The Virginia Baptist Foundation is indeed fortunate and honored to be able to make these grants to do our part helping these partners in the great work that they do,” said David J. Fairchild, chair of the Foundation’s board of trustees.
Baptist churches in Ghana like this one will be able to distribute mosquito nets to combat malaria, thanks to funds from the Foundation.
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Ronald C. Hall, the foundation’s president, added, “Since the grant ministry’s inception in 2005, the Foundation has awarded 45 grants totaling over $1 million to 32 different ministry partners. This ministry is made possible through the Christian stewardship of others. We are humbled by their generosity.”
The recipients are:
- The Appomattox Baptist Association, for the purpose of helping to defray the cost of the ABA’s 2012 Impact Virginia ministry efforts in Appomattox, Campbell, Charlotte and Prince Edward counties;
- The Chaplain Service Prison Ministry of Virginia, to establish and coordinate a faith-based re-entry program for incarcerated men and women at the Deep Meadow Correctional Center in Powhatan, Va., and the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland, Va.;
- The Dover Baptist Association, for the purpose of helping to defray the cost of the DBA’s 2012 Impact Virginia ministry efforts in King William County;
- Eagle Eyrie Baptist Conference Center near Lynchburg, Va., for the sponsorship of the Living Now adult retreat in June;
- The Mid-Tidewater Baptist Association, for the purpose of helping to defray the cost of the MTBA’s 2012 Impact Virginia ministry efforts in Gloucester, Mathews, Middlesex and King & Queen counties;
- The Middle District Baptist Association, for the purpose of helping to defray the cost of MDBA’s 2012 Impact Virginia ministry efforts in the Greater Chesterfield County area;
- The Portsmouth Baptist Association, for the purpose of helping to defray the cost of PBA’s 2012 Operation Inasmuch in the Greater Portsmouth, Va., area;
- The Virginia Baptist Mission Board, for the purpose of supporting a pilot program to improve the spiritual, physical and emotional health of pastors of churches affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia;
- The Mission Board, for the purpose of supporting the continuing efforts of the VBMB’s development office.
In addition to these grant dollars, the foundation designated a distribution of $20,000 from the John Burford Watson Charitable Trust for the following purposes:
- The Baptist Union of Austria, for the development and training of church music leaders in the ABU;
- The Lott Carey Baptist Mission School near Monrovia, Liberia, for the replacement of children’s playground equipment destroyed by civil war;
- The Ghana Baptist Convention, for the purchase of mosquito nets to combat malaria in Ghana’s Yendi Province (a Virginia Baptist Mission Board project);
- The Panama Baptist Convention, to aid in the production of Spanish-speaking evangelistic materials.
E. Stuart Crow, chair of the trustees’ administrative committee, said, “These funds were made available because others have been so generous. It is our pleasure to award them to others who are ministering not only in our state, but around the world in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Grant applications for 2013 will be available on the Foundation’s website (www.vbfinc.org) on Nov. 1, 2012.
Cindy Elmore ([email protected]) is director of donor relations for the Virginia Baptist Foundation.