CBF to link with Buckner work along the border

March 10, 2003

CBF to link with Buckner work along border
___DALLAS--The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Buckner Baptist Benevolences will sign an agreement March 20 to advance ministry to children and families along the Texas-Mexico border and beyond.
___The partnership, to be called KidsHeart, will channel CBF volunteers and funding into Buckner-led programs in South Texas and in Kenya. Buckner will provide social ministry training for CBF congregations.
___Buckner is a 124-year-old Texas-based ministry with services to children, families and senior adults. The Baptist General Convention of Texas agency receives some funding from the state convention but generates the majority of its income from a variety of other sources, including individual donors.
___For the initial two years of the partnership, CBF has committed $120,000 for Buckner ministries.
___The largest sum, $90,000, will be used for ministries in three colonias along the Mexican border. This will help fund salaries for Buckner community center directors in El Paso, Progreso and a yet-to-be-named colonia near Laredo. The remaining $30,000 will support ministries through Buckner Orphan Care International in Kenya.
___CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal said the agreement makes Buckner one of three "touch-point ministries" for CBF, along with Habitat for Humanity and World Vision.
___Buckner President Ken Hall called KidsHeart a "working" ministry partnership "that will provide ministry to the most neglected children and families in the United States and in other countries."
___The KidsHeart agreement will be signed by Vestal and Hall at the Progreso Community Center in Progreso March 20 at 11:30 a.m. The public is invited to the "blue jeans and work clothes" ceremony.

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