FRENCH WORD-A-DAY

I am a huge fan of freerice.com! It is a game that you play with many difference subjects and for each answer you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program. I post this link to my class webpage for my students to practice their French/Spanish and do some good at the same time.
http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&t=21839285456&s=French

There are people right in our own neighborhoods and communities who need help so I volunteer with Meals on Wheels twice a week and work once a week at the local food bank. There are lots of people in need in this tough economy. It feels good to help my own community and I have met so many wonderful people!

In addition to the above, I've supported the charities below for a number of years.

Save the Children - not directly food, although it may include food. You "adopt" a child and pay so much per month to support him or her (I'm now on my fourth child). The money mostly goes to the village in which the child lives, and some undoubtedly is used for seeds. It can also be channeled into digging wells and so on. This charity uses about 93% of its funds for helping, very little on overhead.

The Heifer Project uses donations to buy animals to give to families so they can be self-sufficient. A small donation might pay for a couple of chickens, a larger one for a goat or cow. With chickens, families have eggs and, eventually, more chickens, which they can use for food or sell (as well as selling any surplus eggs). Larger animals can give milk, or in the case of oxen, help plow fields. As flocks/herds grow, the family standard of living rises.
Heifer Project offers for sale items made by people in developing countries, as well, from bowls to scarves, and has a line of holiday cards decorated with pictures made by people in those countries.

Local organizations, such as our church, and even the postal service and a county park, ask for food donations either regularly, or at certain times of the year. These go to low-income families in the neighborhood whose budgets are tight.

WORLD FOOD DAY - WHAT A WONDERFUL CALL YOU HAVE PUT OUT TODAY ON YOUR FWAD BLOG TODAY.

You have opened a floodgate of thoughts in my little brain today on how I could affect the world right here in my little world in Mexico. First off I think I will clean out
my pantry and then move into the bathroom and take out all of those 1/10 used bottles of shampoo etc. that I didn't like plus all the rest of whatever is hiding in there, place all this stuff in a box and walk up to the bus stop that runs in the direction of the mountain jungle where all of the Darling Mexicans live in shacks and commute to Puerto Vallarta to work for pennies to support their families.

Then I think I will walk back to the market and fill up a sack with candies and get on one of those little bus's and pass out candy as I ride along with all of these poor Mexicans to their little pueblo's.

I think if I just get out today I will find all kinds of pathways that will lead to helping feed the less fortunate in my part of the world.

Thanks Kristi, you always surprise me with your posts-each post always sparks something within me. You are absolutly more than any mother could ask for.

XOXO

JULES - PUERTO VALLARTA, MEXICO

Makindu Childrens Program (www.makindu.org) feeding, educating and sustaining the children of Makindu Kenya, and area ravaged by HIV Aids. They are some of the worlds children in need.

Second Harvest Food Bank

Heifer Project

City Team Ministries

I try to make a casserole a week for Beans & Bread. It is a day resource center for people who are homeless located in the Fells Point area of Baltimore, Maryland. The program provides meals, day respite, intensive case management, and housing placement.

Each day, approximately 300 individuals come to Beans & Bread for the help they need in their daily struggle for survival.

The local churches hand out a casserole recipe at church each Sunday and the next Sunday you bring in that casserole (frozen), which is then transported downtown. VOILA!!

We have been sponsoring children through the World Vision program for many years...now we are helping a little girl who lives near Jerusalem. I am also volunteering with Meals on Wheels which I took up when I no longer needed to help cut sandwiches for the school tuckshop but still wanted to do some community work. I love this service and wish more "younger" people became involved as it is a great way to meet some amazingly wonderful people!

We work as volunteers every Wednesday on the assembly line packing food boxes and bags for the hungry here in Southern Arizona. The Community Food Bank provides enough food for over 48,000 meals every day. Over 22.5 million pounds of food were distributed through the food bank’s programs last year, but demand has risen sharply, and recently the number of boxes or bags an individual or family can receive per month has been reduced. Corporate and individual donations have increased, its just the demand is so huge. It breaks my heart to know that in a country as rich as the US, so many go to sleep at night hungry.

Like your other readers, we've met some truly wonderful people, from retirees to college students, to folks doing community service as part of their sentencing or probation.

Thank you for the reminder about World Food Day. Many people have mentioned some of my favorite national and international organizations (One, Heifer Project, Save the Children, Second Harvest), but I would like to encourage anyone with children to participate in Trick or Treat for UNICEF. Do kids Trick or Treat in France? Last year, my son's class raised over $600, just from extra change given to them along with their candy. UNICEF provides food, school supplies and possibly most important of all, clean drinking water to children and their families all over the world. Kids love this and it empowers them to become world citizens.

My favorite is Heifer Project (now Heifer International): http://www.heifer.org/. I appreciate the fact that it's not just a hand-out, but a hand up. The people who receive the animals are trained to care for them in an environmentally sustainable way and to then pass on offspring to others in need. Heifer Project has worked hard to help empower women, too, who often lack the means or the education to support and feed themselves and their children. Check out the children's book, Beatrice's Goat, for one family's story!

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