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Tonight in Guatemala, as in many parts of the world, hunger pangs will keep countless children awake.
Food insecurity causes both immediate suffering and long-term damage. Guatemala’s hunger crisis traps families in a terrible cycle of malnutrition, illness, reduced income and worsening poverty. Adults live on less than $8.30 per day, greatly compromising their ability to feed their families. According to one U.N. estimate, nearly half of all Guatemalan children under age 5 suffer from stunted growth due to chronic hunger.
In 2025, Cross Catholic Outreach filled stomachs with more than 27 million Vitafood meals. With your help, we can extend this blessing to many more hungry families.
At a cost of just 7 cents per meal, $70 provides 1,000 Vitafood meals for the hungry. Because we secure donations of ingredients and rely on volunteers to help package meals, your gift mainly covers the cost of shipping. That means every dollar has triple the impact — providing three times as much food as it would buy in local Guatemalan marketplaces!
Put your compassion into action by sending nutritious Vitafood meals to hungry children and families.
Your gift will empower priests, sisters and lay missionaries around the world to provide protein-packed Vitafood meals so the most vulnerable people do not go hungry. These meals are a game changer for our in-country ministry partners, including:
Vitafood is Cross Catholic Outreach’s specially formulated meal packs. These meals are shelf-stable and easy to distribute, with approximately 272,160 meals fitting inside a single shipping container.
Each meal has three main components: a rice or lentil or potato base; a protein (typically a bean variety); and vitamins to energize, strengthen and improve overall health. Importantly, Vitafood is designed to combat chronic hunger and support a child’s healthy development.
Contains iron, vitamin B12, folate, vitamin B6 and vitamin C to support red blood cell production.
Contains copper, vitamin E, niacin and riboflavin to support optimal eye health.
Contains vitamin A, biotin, iodine and potassium to support healthy brains and bones.
For Guatemalan children like Ariana, healthy meals are not guaranteed. That’s why her parents, Euelio and Olivia, are thankful for the Vitafood meals provided by the Diocese of Suchitepéquez-Retalhuleu. Now Ariana and her brothers eat three meals a day!
“Thank you for the food,” Olivia said. “Since it’s fortified rice, it has vitamins so my children do not get sick anymore.”
Your support can help children like Ariana grow up healthy and strong — with each meal reinforcing God’s love!
Faithful friends like you are helping Cross Catholic Outreach feed children and families across four continents.
Hunger is a daily threat in the Diocese of Karonga. Vitafood meals are critical to combating this suffering.
The Haitian Resource Development Foundation needs Vitafood meals to feed hungry children.
The Mision Jesuita will feed the hungry at various institutions, including the Heart of Jesus School.
Use it for reflections and notes to grow in your spiritual life. You’ll also receive a prayer request form to mail back so that we can pray for your needs. In effect, this creates a spiritual bridge to connect you to our sisters and brothers in Christ in the developing world!
Cross Mission Partners also receive a semiannual Mission Update with news, insights and information about the good work and accomplishments made possible by your support.
Every dollar helps us bless the least of our brothers and sisters throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Mexico & Central America and South America.
Thank You for Your Special Commitment to Serving the Poor!
Donations from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures for this project incurred through June 30, 2027, the close of our ministry’s fiscal year. In the event that more funds are raised than needed to fully fund the project, the excess funds, if any, will be used to meet the most urgent needs of the ministry.