By Marie Mulvenna

Education was the major thrust of Regions IV and V of the Campaign for Human Development (CHD) which met last week in Atlanta. Specifically, the diocesan directors, religious education coordinators and national office representatives, placed strong emphasis on the need for integrating the concepts of social justice into parochial school systems.

A follow-up resolution approved by the delegates called for the assignment of an educational specialist in each diocese, with the specialist’s function explained as one sensitizing the total diocesan educational system to the need for education for justice and social transformation.

Father Jacob Bollmer, head of the Department of Social Services for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, was re-elected diocesan director of the CHD as well as director of Region IV comprising the states of Georgia, Florida, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

Also attending the national gathering were Monsignor Lee Cody, director in Washington, D.C. and Father Lawrence McNamara, executive director of the CHD.

The discussion of the 1974 CHD campaign centered primarily on the need for institutional change in the poverty area, not merely funding. Regional meetings such as the one in Atlanta are held throughout the country, aiming at serving more organizations in need through the annual campaign, which is held each year the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Projects funded through the CHD are to have “spin-off,” thus bringing about additional change over and above the specific project.

Father McNamara described the purpose of the yearly campaign: “It’s purpose is to bring about a movement of heart and will; the development of new or different attitudes – a reappraisal of attitudes toward the material possessions entrusted to us by God in the light of our actual needs and the needs of others.” The campaign has also been described as a “movement going on every day of every year – attempting to reach the minds and hearts of all people.”

The CHD is the American Catholic Church’s yearly domestic anti-poverty appeal, seeking to provide seed money to self-help organizations run by the poor themselves and to educate the American public as to the realities of domestic poverty.

The national drive was born in 1970 and to date has funded over $16 million from the national office to over 600 organizations, most of which are not Catholic in nature.

The structure of the CHD is a national committee, made up of a 40 member voluntary advisory board. Bishops, priests, sisters, and laity represent a mix racially, geographically, ethnically of American society.

The CHD makes no outside effort to seek funding from the public and relies solely on the pre-Thanksgiving Day collection. A unique aspect of the drive is the fact that 25 percent of all funds collected are retained in individual dioceses for use at a local level.

Current requests for funding through the CHD total $125 million and the drive netted a collection of $6 million. A detailed evaluation of all requests for funding is made on the local level prior to submission of a proposal for national funding. On the national level, the request is closely scrutinized by a panel and study before any allocation is decided.

One of the resolutions approved by CHD delegates in Atlanta, called for designation of a member of the national staff in the area of grantsmanship in seeking alternate funding for proposals that do meet the CHD criteria but cannot be funded for financial reasons. Such an appointee would have the expertise to deal with federal, state, local or private level funding organizations and would also serve as consultant to local communities.

Additional resolutions ask an evaluation process to measure the successes and failures of selected funded projects with the emphasis on the dynamic and progress of these projects.

Announced goals for the 1974 drive are: to raise consciousness and to raise money. The current campaign will focus on the human lives that are affected by the CHD and will continue to offer alternatives of hope to a depressed and problem-ridden populace. “if there was ever a time when interdependence was recognized as a need for all humans, it is now.”