[1]DALLAS (BP)–More than 2,700 retired Southern Baptist workers — most of them pastors or widows — receiving Adopt An Annuitant benefits will see a 50 percent increase in their monthly income supplements at the end of January 1998.
Meanwhile, nearly 600 relief recipients supported by the convention’s Annuity Board will receive a 10 percent increase. Relief benefits, funded by the Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program Allocation Budget, and by the Retired Ministers Support Fund of the Annuity Board, will be increased to $200 per month for individuals and $265 for a couple. More than half the relief recipients receive no regular annuity benefit because their churches never enrolled them in the Church Annuity Plan.
The Adopt An Annuitant benefit, to increase from $50 to $75, is funded by direct gifts to the board to give special help to annuitants with very low benefits. By the end of September 1997, the number of adopted people or couples had reached 2,745. Five more were added at the November meeting of trustees. The Adopt An Annuitant program was launched in 1981.
At the current number of adopted annuitants, annual allocations from the Annuity Board initiative will rise from some $1.6 million to approximately $2.4 million a year.
Annuity Board trustees approved recommendations for the increases from their relief committee during the board’s Nov. 3-4 trustee meeting in Dallas.
C. Joe McIntosh, managing director of endowment said, “We are confident Southern Baptists will continue to respond to this need. Monthly gifts for this ministry — many of them small gifts — currently meet most of our needs. Many persons or groups give $50 or $75 each month. A one-time gift of $12,000 will fund a $75 per month benefit in perpetuity.”