Delivering food, shelter, and hope to the poorest of the poor
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Cross Catholic Outreach
- September 22, 2009
One Meal Does Make a Difference
The United Nations World Food Programme recently reported that food aid to the world’s poor is at a 20-year low, yet the number of hungry people is at the highest level ever — 1 billion. Part of the problem is countries such as the U.S. have cut back their aid because of economic woes, leaving millions of poor without food.
Recent reports of severe food shortages in Guatemala and intense famine in Kenya and other East African countries have only reinforced the idea that world hunger has reached a crisis level.
We at Cross Catholic are responding to this pervasive need by providing tens of thousands of meals to the poor through our Catholic ministry partners around the globe. We ship containers of nutrient-rich food packets, support school feeding programs, and provide food for nutrition centers and feeding programs for the sick, elderly, and orphaned.
A young boy begs in the street for food in a rural village of southern Ethiopia’s Borana Zone. Famine and decreased food aid because of the economy are expected to leave 20 million more hungry.
World hunger may seem like a problem too big to tackle, but we’ve seen firsthand that just one meal can mean the difference between life and death.
For Javier, a toddler rescued by a nutrition center we support in Central America, it was seven meals that saved his life.
The 10-month-old orphan weighed just under 9 pounds — little more than a newborn — when he was rescued by Las Mercedes/Prince of Peace Nutrition Center in Honduras. The doctor there said he would die within a week unless he received food immediately. With love, care, and a ready-supply of food, the staff at the center was able to nurse Javier back to health. In just four months, he had made a full recovery.
That first week of meals saved Javier’s life. Without them he never would have grown into the happy, healthy boy he is today.
Javier’s story illustrates the impact just a few meals can make. Though malnutrition can be devastating, many of its harmful effects can be reversed with a steady supply of nutritious meals, especially if it is treated early. When someone is starving, one meal really does make a difference!
Help save a life and share the love of Christ by supporting one of our feeding programs — CLICK HERE.
A few meals saved Javier’s life. The 10-month-old, who weight just under 9 pounds (left), would have died in a week if a nutrition center we support in Honduras hadn’t intervened.
