Abstinence programs run by Catholic groups get $3.2 million from HHS

Published: 2004-09-16

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Abstinence education programs run by Catholic Charities of Buffalo, N.Y., and the Diocese of Orlando, Fla., recently received grants totaling $3.2 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The ProjecTruth abstinence-until-marriage education initiative established by Catholic Charities of Buffalo in 2001 recently received a three-year grant of $2.4 million. A one-year grant of $800,000 to promote abstinence education in Florida was presented Sept. 15 to Coadjutor Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando and Deborah Stafford-Shearer of the diocese's Respect Life office by Wade F. Horn, HHS assistant secretary for children and families. ProjecTruth currently provides character-based, abstinence-until-marriage education to adolescents in more than three dozen public and private schools in western New York. More than 15,000 youths have experienced the program since it started. Orlando's "Think Smart" program, run by the diocesan Respect Life office, aims to give young people between 12 and 18 years old an understanding of the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from premarital sexual activity.

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