March 19, 2002

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Linda Simmons Hight
Media Relations Director
Church of Scientology International
6331 Hollywood Blvd. Suite 1200
Los Angeles, CA 90028-6329
Phone (323) 960-3500
Fax (323) 960-3508
E-mail mediarelationsdir@scientology.net

SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTERS CORPS 25 YEARS OF HELPING THOSE IN NEED

Twenty-five years ago the first Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers completed their training and set out to help others wherever help was most needed.

Today the program is stronger than ever, with more than 15,000 volunteers in 151 countries around the world fulfilling their credo: “Something CAN be done about it.”

“It” can be anything from a strained marriage to problems at work to a devastating earthquake that has wrought destruction to a community. Volunteer Ministers are prepared to give spiritual and practical help in a wide range of circumstances, providing individuals with basic tools to help themselves solve most problems they face in life. To get out the message broadly that something CAN be done about it, since January 1, more than 1,100 billboards have gone up in cities around the U.S., providing the hotline number (1-800-HELP-4-YU) that connects callers wanting help with trained volunteers. The $1.1 million campaign has been funded by donations from church members. Coinciding with National Volunteers Week April 21-27, thousands more busboards and subway posters are up in another dozen cities.

The Volunteer Minister Program, developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, sent its first graduates to work in 1977. Since then thousands of Scientologists have undergone the rigorous training program to become certified Volunteer Ministers. September 11 was a wakeup call for many people and more than 6,000 people enrolled in the training program in the months following the disaster, thus swelling the ranks of Volunteer Ministers to some 15,000 in 151 countries.

Scientology Volunteer Ministers have through the decades helped at the sites of major disasters. Eight hundred Volunteer Ministers worked alongside rescue workers at Ground Zero in New York, helping them deal with shock, trauma, exhaustion and pain. They won high praise from firemen, police, medical personnel and city officials. They were again on the front lines in December 2001 bringing the same assistance to some of the 20,000 fire fighters in Australia battling the brush fires raging around Sydney.

Volunteer Ministers were already known for their service throughout the 1990s at other disasters where help was needed—the Los Angeles civil disorder in 1992 and the Northridge earthquake in 1994; in 1995, earthquakes in Kobe, Japan; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Sakhalin Island in Russia. And in every year throughout the decade, they provided assistance at tornados, hurricanes, floods and wars throughout the world.

In addition to efficiently handling practical matters, Volunteer Ministers provide services unique to Scientology—namely, the “assists” that help a rescue worker recover rapidly from shock, trauma, pain, grief and exhaustion and get back to the emergency matters at hand. An assist can reorient a person after a disaster so he is able to cope with the aftermath.

While thousands of Volunteer Ministers through the years have answered the call at disaster sites far from their homes, thousands more have carried on in their local communities—assisting the neighbors with a teenager on drugs, counseling a co-worker with marital problems, comforting a grieving widow.

“Helping others in times of need has always been the role of religion,” said Church of Scientology International Vice President Janet Weiland. “Volunteer Ministers are networked through the Internet, which makes it possible to respond rapidly to emergencies and to assist with regular ministerial needs in their own communities or in far-flung corners of the world,” she said.

More information on the Volunteer Ministers program is available at www.volunteerministers.org. Assistance from a Volunteer Minister may be requested by calling 1-800-HELP-4-YU.