November 4, 2002
Faith-based funding moving ahead
___By Adelle Banks
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON (RNS)--Fourteen months after issuing its audit citing the need for improved relationships between government and faith-based organizations, the Bush administration is moving ahead with conferences, grant disbursements and training efforts to enhance public/private partnerships.
___At a conference on faith-based social services, administration officials updated an audience of about 200 scholars and religious leaders on their work.
___Tens of millions of dollars in grants have been announced by the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services while other Cabinet-level departments are fostering efforts to get community and faith-based groups more involved in education, justice and housing programs.
___Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, said his office, along with its five department-based centers, has begun regional training conferences with a large turnout at an Oct. 10 event in Atlanta.
___"We turned away 1,000 people and still had about 2,000 people there," he reported at an Oct. 23 conference sponsored by the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy.
___The roundtable is a research project of the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y., and is supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
___The administration's educational efforts are continuing even as legislation aimed at broadening Bush's initiative is stalled.
___Towey said he failed to understand the critics of the initiative and hopes the Charity Aid, Recovery and Empowerment Act, which has been mired in the Senate, will still pass.
___"It is unfortunate," he said. "The real losers in this and the ones being held hostage are our poor."
___But work on the administrative level--spurred by an August 2001 audit indicating barriers between faith-based groups and government--includes new brochures, such as one from the Labor Department whose cover reads, "Not everyone has a burning bush to tell them their life's calling."
___Brent Orrell, director of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Labor Department, described a pilot program involving Prison Fellowship and other groups that is providing mentors to ex-offenders seeking employment.
___"We've gotten a group of employers to say, 'Yes, we will take people with felony records if you will provide them with community and faith-based support,'" he said.
___The Department of Education expects to enhance its work with faith-based and community groups to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, which seeks to close the achievement gap between poor and richer children.
Get printer-friendly version of this story
Send this story to a friend
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook