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Last month we celebrated the beginning of a new year and a new decade. Anglicans were also celebrating the beginning of a new decade 40 years ago, and PWRDF (with the newly minted "D" in its name for "Development") was reflecting on its first 10 years of providing emergency and disaster relief, helping refugees, promoting sustainable development, and advocating for change. Our 1970s gallery, now online, reminds us of the work around the world that Anglicans in Canada, through PWRDF, supported during that decade.

A look through the library and archives has uncovered some treasures from the earliest days of The Primate's World Relief Fund. In our 1960's Gallery, you can view early photos of PWRF's work, letters from past Primates, promotional materials, and have a glimpse of what a dollar could do back then. In the early 1960's, Development hadn't been added to the organization's name yet, and much of the focus was on emergency relief and refugees.

October 23, 2008

Fifty years ago today, on October 23, 1958, an underground explosion in a Nova Scotia coal mine trapped 174 men underground. Seventy-five of those men died, leaving the tiny town of Springhill to cope with devastating grief and loss.

Out of that tragedy sprang The Primate's World Relief Fund, as Anglicans and other Canadians moved quickly to help the devastated community. Later re-named The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund, PWRDF continues to provide a way for Anglicans across Canada to help those who need it the most.

November 4, 2008
Reprinted from Northumberland Today

Cobourg octogenarian Mary Corbett observed a date last week that was significant to the entire country -- the 50th anniversary of the Oct. 23, 1958, Springhill mining disaster.

The underground earthquake at the Nova Scotia facility was the most severe disaster of its kind in North American mining history in what was then one of the deepest coal mines in the world.

Springhill, Nova Scotia is located on high ground between the minas Basin and Northumberland Strait, in the Cobequid mountains in Cumberland County. In early records, the town is called "Springhill mines", appropriate because coal mining was the town's bread and butter right into the 1960s due to the coal deposits underlying the town.