April 28, 1999

$1 million hunger goal set for 2000
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___COPPER CANYON--The Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission has adopted a $1 million world hunger offering goal for 2000 and appropriated $10,000 from current funds for relief work among the Kosovar refugees in Albania.
___Recommendations regarding the Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering topped the agenda as the commission met with its board of consultants advisory panel April 15-16 at Briarwood Retreat Center near Denton.
___The CLC recommended that world hunger funds next year be divided 20 percent to Texas hunger projects, 18 percent to Baptist World Alliance projects and 20 percent each to projects through the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
___In addition to specific project requests, the commission recommended that $200,000 be provided to the Southern Baptist International Mission Board for agricultural and economic development ministries and that $20,000 be made available for emergency responses.
___Unlike other agencies that ask for funds for specific hunger-related projects, the IMB has not submitted requests since Texas Baptists adopted the project-oriented approach four years ago.
___Hunger Consultant Nathan Porter noted that if Texas Baptists reach the $1 million goal, the offering would meet more than half of the requests submitted.
___The $950,000 giving goal for 1999 provides funds for a little more than one-fourth of the requests submitted last year.
___Nearly three-fourths of the $200,000 designated for Texas-based hunger projects is earmarked for the largest population centers--Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio.
___The remaining $50,000 includes projects in Amarillo, Brownwood, Corpus Christi and the Conroe area.
___Specific project allocations for 2000 include:
___ $75,000 for feeding programs and seed money to help displaced Kurds in eastern Turkey.
___ $61,000 for agricultural and water resource development in Jordan.
___ $45,000 for programs in New York--including meals for female residents in a substance abuse rehabilitation program and job training for participants in community ministries on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
___ $35,000 for hunger programs in Ohio, particularly through the Cincinnati Baptist Center, and the church and community ministries unit of the Greater Cleveland Baptist Association.
___ $30,000 each for a demonstration farm in Bangladesh, an agricultural development project in Mozambique and drought rehabilitation in the Philippines.
___Giving to the Texas hunger offering has been on an upward trend since the project allocations plan was adopted.

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