By Alabama Public Radio
Birmingham AL – Birmingham-Southern College has started paying out 368-thousand dollars in donations that were gathered to rebuild churches burned by arsonists in February. Donations came in from around the world. The checks are being delivered to the churches by faculty, students and staff. Six churches destroyed by fire will get 53-thousand dollars each. The remaining 50-thousand dollars of the rebuilding fund was divided among four churches with minor damage. Birmingham-Southern announced the church fund in March when they learned that two students and a former student had been arrested for the string of fires at nine rural churches.
The college included a 10th church, Beaverton Free Will Baptist Lamar County, in the goodwill gesture. That church may have been burned as part of a copycat crime.