ATLANTA – The track record of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in responding to victims of hurricanes, tornadoes, fires and floods across the country in the past five years has led to the Fellowship’s acceptance as a member of National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (or National VOAD) in June.
The Fellowship also announced a new partnership with the Baptist General Convention of Texas for the ongoing earthquake response in Haiti.
Becoming a member of National VOAD brings credibility to CBF’s response efforts, which are less than five years old, according to Charles Ray, CBF disaster response coordinator. While Fellowship Baptists have historically responded through local churches and state organizations to help those in need, it wasn’t until 2005 that efforts were organized by a national coordinator.
When Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast in August 2005, Ray was working with Arkansas CBF. He was quickly tapped to coordinate the Fellowship’s response.
“We had no program the day before Katrina hit,” Ray said. “I couldn’t get down there to help until two weeks later because of all of the debris.”
National VOAD includes organizations such as the Salvation Army, Red Cross, Catholic Charities, World Vision, Save The Children and others. “Of the 51 members of VOAD, each brings something strong to the table,” Ray said.
“CBF’s strengths are the generosity of its people – its ability to raise money quickly; the lack of bureaucracy; and its staying power. We’ll come in up to a month after the event and we’ll stay as long as it takes. We like to say ‘we’ll turn the lights out.’”
As evidence of this, Ray said CBF is still invested in rebuilding the Gulf coast following Hurricane Katrina, as well as repairing storm damage from Hurricanes Ike and Gustav.
In addition to its efforts across the United States, CBF Disaster Response is a vital cog in the ongoing recovery efforts in Haiti. Because of CBF’s memorandum of understanding with Convention Baptiste d’Haiti signed in June, the Baptist General Convention of Texas has decided to partner with CBF Disaster Response to coordinate efforts.
“We will help them get there and back, house them and coordinate efforts on the ground there,” Ray said. “We have established our own power supply, our own water system and last week unveiled a state of the art communications system.”
The first team of Texas Baptists to serve through this partnership was deployed to Haiti the last week of June.
To date, Fellowship Baptists have donated more than $1.2 million to the Haitian earthquake relief efforts. For information on the Haiti response, visit the Fellowship’s blog at www.thefellowship.info/blog, or to make a contribution online, go to https://www.thefellowship.info/Give/Donate.aspx?fund=17015.