The North American Mission Board (NAMB) is sending $950,000 to Baptist conventions in seven states hard-hit by tornadoes and storms this spring.
The funds have been distributed based on a formula prioritizing the states’ needs, NAMB President Kevin Ezell announced.
The amount of funds by state follows: Alabama, $494,000 (52 percent of the $950,000); Missouri and Tennessee, $114,000 each (12 percent each); Mississippi, $66,500 (7 percent); Arkansas and Oklahoma, $57,000 each (6 percent each); and Georgia, $47,500 (5 percent).
“We are disbursing all the funds we received for spring storm relief,” Ezell said. “We are grateful to Southern Baptists for their generosity and want them to know the money is going where it is most needed.” Funds received after the current distribution will go to North Dakota for flood relief, Ezell added.
Through July 8, 1,719 donors had made 1,940 gifts totaling nearly $1 million to support the disaster relief efforts of NAMB and the state conventions, reported Carlos Ferrer, NAMB vice president and chief financial officer. This amount is in addition to monies Southern Baptists gave directly to state convention disaster relief funds.
“It’s been an expensive year for disaster relief,” said Mickey Caison, NAMB’s disaster relief coordinator, “and we haven’t begun to get money for our upcoming North Dakota flood response yet.”
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) currently is gearing up for a major response in Minot, N.D., where flooding of the local Souris River has impacted 4,000 homes, requiring extensive mud-out work.
Even with this year far from over and in the midst of the annual hurricane season that does not end until Nov. 30, SBDR in 2011 will be remembered as the year of deadly tornadoes, historic flooding, an unusual number of state wildfires, earthquakes and even a tsunami.
Except for 2005 — the year of Hurricane Katrina — SBDR staff and volunteers have seldom been so taxed and spread so thin, NAMB officials noted.
“We’ve had a lot of states involved in a lot of responses,” Caison said, adding that he thinks the SBDR network is continually gaining strength.
“Even though we’ve been stretched thin and involved in so many different states, our state leaders and volunteers continue to step up in ministry,” Caison said. “We’ve had the diversity of disasters in past years but not the diversity of disasters spread across so many states.”
Yet 2011 will go down as another successful year not just because of the thousands of SBDR volunteers who have worked across the United States and Canada, and not because of the 412,000 meals prepared, the 28,000 “volunteer days” served or the 4,000 mud-out and chain saw jobs completed.
Its success also will be measured in the 100-plus people who were led to Christ and 22,000 gospel presentations, ministry contacts and chaplaincy contacts made during the first seven months of the year. (BP)
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