More News
- ABF Aid to Students More Than Doubles in Past Year!
- ABF Announces New Programs for 2009
- Camp Counselors a Win-Win-Win Program
- C.S. Youth Transported to C.S. Youth Summit Meetings
- DVD’s of ABF Africa Trip Still Available
ABF AID TO STUDENTS MORE THAN DOUBLES IN PAST YEAR!
ABF provided needed financial aid to 521 Christian Science students in the past year, more than double a year ago. This included grants and loans to college students in the U.S. and Canada, C.S. Nurses, C.S. camp counselors, C.S. college students in Africa, C.S. military chaplains in training, international students at Principia, interns at The Mother Church and other C.S. organizations, and high-school age members of DiscoveryBound's National Leadership Council. The dollar value of ABF grants and loans rose to $1,328,044. And it was all funded by income from ABF investments and contributions from donors. Not a single donated dollar was diverted to cover ABF operations; all donations went 100% to students.
ABF ANNOUNCES NEW PROGRAMS FOR 2009
New programs approved by the Board of Directors for 2009 include:
(1) Expansion into the United Kingdom and three new African countries. African countries being considered include Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa. All have healthy and growing Christian Science communities, and most are tangential to our existing five African Countries.
(2) A Language Immersion Program for Christian Science teachers, practitioners, lectures, nurses, Christian Science Monitor reporters, military chaplins and christian Science institutional workers.; This program will increase their language fluency and enable them to help Christian Scientists take Christian Science class instruction and attend annual Association meetings.
CAMP COUNSELORS A WIN-WIN-WIN PROGRAM
ABF grants to counselors in Christian Science summer camps included more then 100 counselors this past year, and 95 are already lined up for the summer of 2009. The program is a win-win-win situation:
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Campers get the benefit of having excellent Christian Science role models as their counselors, and learn how to use Science in their daily experience.
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camp directors get to bring back experienced and successful counselors for another season by awarding these grants.
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Counselors can take these relatively low-paying jobs because ABF grants make up for the lighter summer income from private companies they often forego.
C.S. YOUTH TRANSPORTED TO C.S. YOUTH SUMMIT MEETINGS
Following up on the success of transporting 30 students from remote parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo to Kinshasa for a TMC Youth Summit meeting there last August, ABF helped another half dozen youth reach the successful TMC Youth Summit meeting in Chicago in October.
DVD’s OF ABF AFRICA TRIP STILL AVAILABLE
A 17 minute film of ABF President Nancy Battey and then-CEO Warren Berckmann's visit to Africa in October 2008 - preparatory to introducing ABF into Camaroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo - can be viewed below. They also visited ABF operations in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. View of African ABF students, Christian Science churches, societies and CSOs in these countries, are also shown. In addition to being viewable below, copies of the DVD are available FREE to interested parties. To order your copy, call 800-269-0388 or e-mail your name and address with the words "African DVD on website" to abf@albertbakerfund.org
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