#GivingTuesday 2020: The Good You Do is Changing Lives – Help Food For The Poor Build 100 Homes for Families in Dire Need
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Nov. 24, 2020) This year’s #GivingTuesday global campaign takes on special meaning for Food For The Poor. The coronavirus pandemic, food shortages and devastating back-to-back hurricanes have taken a toll in the countries where the charity serves.
The charity’s goal this year is to build 100 homes.
On Nov. 3, Category 4 Hurricane Eta left a deadly path of destruction in Nicaragua, Guatemala and in Honduras. Two weeks later, Hurricane Iota, another catastrophic Category 4 hurricane, took the same trek and wiped out anything the first storm did not.
For families like Maria and her eight children in Santa Cruz de Yojoa, Honduras, who have been living in poverty for many years, these storms have made a dire situation worse.
Maria’s husband abandoned the family, and her eldest son, 14, recently abandoned them too, leaving her alone to care for seven children, ages 8 months to 11 years. Before the storms, Maria washed clothes to earn money to feed her family, mostly tortillas and beans. Their unstable home of wooden planks, cardboard pieces and rusted zinc scraps was filled with gaps, and the least bit of rain would turn their dirt floor to mud.
Before the hurricanes, Maria shared with Food For The Poor that her heartfelt prayers to God were for a safe and secure home for her family.
“I really need a house for my children,” Maria said. “If God sends me a home, it will be a great blessing from Him. I want my children to grow up knowing that I gave them a good education, and that they can say, ‘My mom never abandoned me and she showed me how to respect others.'”
Food For The Poor’s #GivingTuesday fundraising goal this year is to build 100 homes. The charity joined the global movement nine years ago to bring awareness to the plight of those living in poverty, families such as Maria’s.
“I cannot find the words to express what the families in the countries where we serve are enduring right now, but the one thing I am certain about is that generosity gives everyone the power to make a positive change in the lives of others,” said Angel Aloma, Food For The Poor EVP & Chief Marketing Officer. “Our resolve is to never give up on helping people in need. We are determined to shine a light of hope as we help to rebuild what was destroyed by the hurricanes this #GivingTuesday.”
Through a matching-gift challenge, donations received by Food For The Poor toward housing, up to $750,000 by midnight on Dec.1, will be doubled.
Visit www.FoodForThePoor.org/givingtuesday to support the charity’s #GivingTuesday initiative and help provide a family with a safe and secure home.
Founded in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y, a community and cultural center in New York City, #GivingTuesday is recognized on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. It is a day set aside to inspire people to collaborate to improve their communities and support the causes they believe in.
Food For The Poor, one of the largest international relief and development organizations in the nation, does much more than feed millions of hungry children and families living in poverty primarily in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicine, educational materials, homes, support for orphaned and abandoned children, care for the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.
Wanda Wright
Public Relations
954-427-2222 x 6079
[email protected]