2700 N. Military Trail, Suite 240 PO Box 273908 Boca Raton, Florida 33427-3908 1-800-914-2420 St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church Feeding Program School lunches for poor children Rural Guyana PROJECT 0105 John answered, The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same. Luke 3:11 WWW.CROSSCATHOLIC.ORG
Project Synopsis Description Provide hot lunches for hungry children at four rural primary schools. Purpose To improve the nutritional health of poor school children, so they ll have the energy to thrive in the classroom. Location The communities of Arapiako, Charity, Marlborough and Lima Sands in rural Guyana, along the Pomeroon River and on the coastal regions of the Essequibo Coast. Cost $39,600 provides food, cooks and transportation to feed about 390 students. That s about $100 per child, per year. Highlights St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and the Institute of the Incarnate Word run a school feeding program in rural Guyana. Each day, hot meals are cooked and delivered to hundreds of students who cannot afford to bring a lunch. Meals of chicken, beef, fish and other foods are supplemented with vegetables purchased from some of the students own family gardens. The food must be transported by boat to very remote locations. The meal distributions provide the opportunity for Incarnate Word priests to bring the message of Christ s love to school campuses. St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church is relying on Cross Catholic Outreach (formerly known as Cross International Catholic Outreach) to fully fund the feeding program. 1
Children in rural Guyana must row long distances in dugout canoes to get to school. The Need Guyana s natural beauty proclaims the glory of God. The land of many waters is known for its mountain ranges, lush rainforest and spectacular waterfalls. But the Catholic clergy and lay workers serving among the South American country s indigenous communities are also expressing God s glory in another way by confronting the poverty you won t read about in the tourism brochures. Isolated from opportunity and lacking education, many indigenous families struggle to provide for their children. Their homes are one-room shacks, their only means of survival is usually subsistencelevel farming, and they may only have enough food for one small meal a day usually just a bowl of rice. To improve their economic situation, some men travel far away to seek employment in the mines, but the work is dangerous and puts them at high risk of malaria or snake bites. When they get sick, they can t work at all, and there is no social safety net for their families during those times. This poverty also impacts their children, threatening their opportunities for a better life through an education. Many students must travel miles by dugout canoe just to get to school in the morning. If they are hungry and malnourished, they struggle to make the journey and arrive with too little energy to focus on their lessons. As a result, many children never get the education they need to escape the cycle of poverty. 2
Ministry Description Concerned by the number of children staying home from school, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church began offering an incentive for attendance: food. Five days a week, nutritious meals are distributed to as many as 390 hungry students who are too poor to bring a lunch. The guarantee of a free meal has encouraged many parents to send their children to school, especially in hard times when that meal may be their sole source of nutrition. The meals include a variety of healthy foods such as chicken, beef, fish, chow mein, plantains and potatoes many of which are rarely available in the children s limited diets at home. Vegetables are purchased from some of the families own gardens to help them earn a small income. All the food is freshly prepared each day and transported in some cases by boat to four different communities. The feeding program is administered by Institute of the Incarnate Word priests, who visit the children at their Your gift to Cross Catholic Outreach will help provide nutritious meals for hungry students. schools and serve as a moral and spiritual presence. Every meal begins with prayer, and the children are encouraged to receive their food in a spirit of thankfulness to God. Strengthened mentally, physically and spiritually, the children are equipped to pursue their dreams. They can stay in school, complete their primary education, prepare for secondary school and develop the self-confidence to become hardworking, self-sufficient adults. 3
Help Now! St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church relies solely on support from Cross Catholic Outreach to cover the full cost of the school lunch program and we can t do it without you! Your gift will help us continue to support this crucial service that is keeping children in school and saving them from the painful effects of malnutrition. By giving to Cross Catholic Outreach, you will ensure that no child is turned away because there isn t enough to eat. You will keep their bellies full, their minds alert and their hopes set high. Won t you join us today and satisfy the hunger of the poor? Won t you reach out with love and compassion to our overseas neighbors in need, remembering Christ s word in Matthew 25: 40, that whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. Proceeds from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures for this project incurred during the current calendar 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. 4 [tm1206][utn1304][utn1401][utn1504] 2700 N. Military Trail, Suite 240 PO Box 273908 Boca Raton, Florida 33427-3908 1-800-914-2420 Cross Catholic Outreach. Cost effectively written, designed and printed in-house.