Delivering food, shelter, and hope to the poorest of the poor
Last year, after decades of a mostly steady decline, the number of people suffering from severe hunger rose by at least 20 million. The total number of men, women and children struggling with moderate malnutrition — those who don’t face starvation or severe stunting but may sometimes go to bed hungry — is far higher… and may be incalculable.
Your gift through Cross Catholic Outreach will provide nutrient-rich meals that will protect the most vulnerable from hunger in these hard times and will support life-sustaining and lifesaving services, including:
Help restore the health and well-being of poor families in the name of Jesus Christ. Your generous gift helps us provide enriched Vitafood meals and other nutritional support to our overseas ministry partners who are committed to living out the Corporal Works of Mercy and calling famished souls to encounter Christ.
Heberlyn María was saved from severe hunger by a Cross Catholic Outreach partner.
At a time when she should have been growing and thriving, Heberlyn María was losing her hair. She also had a skin condition and was underweight — because her family in Nicaragua was simply too poor to feed her properly.
This extreme level of hunger put Heberlyn María at a high risk for stunting. Thankfully, our local ministry partner Rainbow Network provided her with nutritious daily meals at its feeding center. Thanks to a balanced diet of proteins, fruits and vegetables, this precious little girl began to gain weight. She now has hope for a brighter future!
Enriched Vitafood meals, which come in multiple varieties, are typically rice-based and are an extremely cost-effective way to feed the hungry and restore those at risk from malnutrition’s crippling physical and mental damage. We can send a high density of meals (about 270,000 to 290,000) in a single shipping container at a bulk rate to our global network of trusted partners.
The result: Many thousands of meals reach local priests, nuns, Catholic schools, orphanages and other distributors who pass them on to hungry children and families.
When you answer the cry of the poor and vulnerable for food, the impact is often much more than just a night without hunger pangs. This is in part because we work with partners who run inspiring programs that meet the immediate, long-term and spiritual needs of the poor.
Children will enjoy normal physical and mental development and avoid malnutrition.
Students will have the energy to stay in school and focus on their studies.
Families will be able to focus their time and resources on priorities other than sheer survival.
As food is given, spiritual nourishment is offered for the soul. These programs model Christ’s sacrificial love.
Your generous gift to Cross Catholic Outreach will meet the nutritional needs of children and families in developing countries such as Haiti and Nicaragua. You may even help save a life!
In partnering with Church missions, especially those working toward the long-term development of struggling communities, your gift can also help support their broader vision, including the spiritual outreaches of the priests, religious sisters and lay leaders on the staff. In this way, not only do you fill empty stomachs, but you also provide important sustenance to searching souls.
Serve Christ today by uniting with our global brothers and sisters for the cause of the poor. Your provision of nutritious meals such as Vitafood will shine the light of the Gospel and can even save a life!
Vitafood is the generic name for all of Cross Catholic Outreach’s specially formulated meal packs, which are designed to meet the needs of the malnourished.
Each pack of Vitafood has three main components: a rice or lentil base, a protein (usually soy or beans) and key vitamins to energize, strengthen and improve the health of malnourished children and families.
Vitafood meal packs are extremely flexible. They come in several different varieties and can be prepared with additional spices or ingredients to suit local tastes. No matter how it is prepared, Vitafood’s nutritional value remains the same, providing the optimal balance of vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, fat and carbohydrates that hungry bodies need.
Cross Catholic Outreach shipped 24.2 million Vitafood meals to feed the hungry through Catholic ministries around the world in Fiscal Year 2020.
Proceeds from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures incurred through June 30, 2024, 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.
When you include Cross Catholic Outreach as a beneficiary in your will, trust, retirement account or life insurance policy, you will make a difference for poor communities by meeting both material and spiritual needs for generations to come.
Our mission is to mobilize the global Catholic Church to transform the poor and their communities materially and spiritually for the glory of Jesus Christ. Your gift empowers us to serve the poorest of the poor by channeling life-changing aid through an international network of dioceses, parishes and Catholic missionaries. This cost-effective approach helps break the cycle of poverty and advance Catholic evangelization.