Launched in 1998, the Appeal strengthens the Catholic Church in the United States and its territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific where resources are thin and priests are few. grantees include 87 Latin and Eastern Catholic dioceses. The appeal funds a wide range of pastoral services including evangelization, religious education, and the maintenance of mission parishes, the training of seminarians and lay ministers, and ministry with ethnic groups. Since 1884, proceeds from the Black and Indian Missions Collection (Bilvf) are distributed as grants to dioceses supporting and strengthening evangelization programs, which would otherwise be in danger of disappearing among the Black, American Indian, Eskimo, and Aleut communities of the United States.