Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador are faced with the prospect of hundreds of dead and thousands homeless, after a relentless 10-day tropical depression flooded out bridges, roads and homes. Those killed include 32 in El Salvador, 29 in Guatemala, 13 in Honduras and eight in Nicaragua, according to local officials in a Tuesday report.In El Salvador alone, the toll is extreme. Fr. David Blanchard, who has served as a missionary in El Salvador since the late 1980s, provided this report today to Food For The Poor:

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded Food For The Poor 4,690 metric tons of food for children in Nicaragua over the next three years. The goal is to improve the education, nutrition, and health conditions of school-aged children in under-served communities in Nicaragua. During a three year period, approximately 275 containers of food will be distributed in the country’s most impoverished communities.

In todays webisode, the PoP staff gives a brief overview of Nicaragua, along with the factors that have driven us to make a difference there. Visit our website for more information about completed schools in Nicaragua as well as upcoming projects at http://www.pencilsofpromise.org/our-projects !!
 

School boys on a playground in rural Nicaragua

Register to vote in Pepsi’s Refresh Project, and with a click of your mouse you can empower high school students to establish Food For The Poor-related clubs. Samantha Kerker, 16, passionately believes all high school students should have the opportunity to witness poverty firsthand, and to give back to their community before they graduate.

Since 2007, Outreach has donated 7.5 million meals, packaged by volunteers throughout the United States, to Food For The Poor. In the last year alone, Outreach has donated four containers of food, exceeding 1 million meals.

As part of Trickle Up’s Stronger Voices, Sustainable Livelihoods project, Trickle Up participants in Mali annually celebrate the UN-sponsored International Day for People with Disabilities. Click the picture to see more!

I love hearing stories of people who overcome insurmountable obstacles through God’s extravagant grace. We recently received a powerful testimony from a young woman at Arms of Love Safe Homes in Nicaragua, where Cross supports the education of orphans and vulnerable children:

Have you ever been hugged so tightly you could feel the other person’s heartbeat? Embraces full of gratitude welcomed Monsignor Francis X. Schmidt and residents from the Philadelphia area to villages in Haiti and Nicaragua that they have helped to transform with the relief and development organization Food For The Poor.