Donate – Select “[24AATX] Together We Deliver Hope in Faraway Places“

For the poor in the missions, hunger is a constant companion. It is bad enough for adults, but the little children, the innocent ones, suffer the most. Malnutrition and slow starvation cause stunted physical growth, serious mental retardation, and make God’s little ones susceptible to disease and infection.

Our missionaries work with the poorest of the poor in developing countries, helping to provide them with adequate resources, especially food and water. People cannot survive without food and water!

At the Franciscan Kanamo Center in Mahalapye, Botswana, Father Cyriak Wiktor Budzisz, OFM plans to build a simple covered dining facility with tables and chairs to feed 30 poor children each day. Kitchen facilities already exist to prepare the food. The cost for these improvements and enough food to feed 30 poor children per day for 3 years is only $22,663!

In the town of Negril, Jamaica, our friars feed 60 poor children breakfast every school day and about 120 poor people eat lunch at our Franciscan St. Anthony’s Kitchen. They have been doing this for 14 years!

Father Rodrigo de Castro Amédée Péret, OFM and our other missionary friars of the Franciscan Custody of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Uberlandia, Brazil, help feed homeless people at7 different soup kitchens in the poorest areas of the city. They also distribute hundreds of food packages to poor people every month!

Please Donate – Select “[24AATX] Together We Deliver Hope in Faraway Places”

Our missionary friars from the Franciscan Province of Saint Benedict the African serve a refugee camp of 75,000 people on the outskirts of the city of Goma, the main city of Kivu, the large eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This area near the border has experienced a quiet war that has been going on for almost 30 years now, and those who suffer the most are women and children. This border area is rich in resources and attracts the attention of many in the world who want to benefit from rare earth minerals. One mineral is Coltan. Our mobile phones would not work without it, and Coltan is abundant there.

Refugees have fled the border area to the relative safety of refugee camps that surround Goma. Over a million people are sheltering in the camps! You and I can scarcely imagine what it would be like to live in a refugee camp not knowing if you could get food to survive another day or enough clean water for your basic needs.

But the children in this refugee camp near Goma experience it every day of their lives and can only dream of a better future. Our Franciscan missionary friars help provide food and water to these refugees every day!

Donate – Select “[24AATX] Together We Deliver Hope in Faraway Places”

According to Father Benedykt Świderski, OFM, the minister provincial of St. Michael the Archangel Province in Ukraine: “Each friar in our province does something to help war refugees. We go to zones and areas of conflict, to the border with Russia, even partially occupied territories, risking our lives to deliver life-saving food, water, medicine, and other necessary supplies. We also shelter refugees in our parishes and friaries.”

The province has 60 friars in 18 friaries ministering in 54 parishes throughout Ukraine. Our friars help people in various ways. One friary set up a bakery for the needy. Some friaries have built bomb shelters under friaries and churches. Other friaries have prepared first aid centers and aid distribution points for refugees.

Our Franciscan missionary friars in Ukraine have brought and distributed thousands of tons of humanitarian aid from Europe, especially food, to our Franciscan distribution centers. In addition, the friars have taken aid items to people in destroyed and temporarily occupied areas, traveling thousands of miles on rough, dangerous roads.

Donate – Select “[24AATX] Together We Deliver Hope in Faraway Places”

We have over 8,000 missionary friars and 5,000 missions around the world,

Please send a donation today to help our missionaries provide food and water to all God’s people—those who live as refugees; those who go hungry and thirsty; those who live in poverty amid crime and violence; those who are ill and suffering; and those who are abused and forgotten.

Your prayers and donations have a major impact on the poor. Together, we deliver hope in faraway places.

Today, help a child to be stronger in body and mind and to be better able to resist germs and parasites. Help a child develop the way God intended all children to grow! Please make even a small contribution to help our Franciscan missionaries feed the poor, and the Lord will repay you for your generosity.

We are blessed to live in a land of plenty. Most of us never worry about feeding our families. By sharing a little with the poor, you are providing food. A pocket full of change can provide a bowl of soup, a cup of water, bread, and medicine. Your change can truly transform someone’s destiny from death to life.

By giving thanks to God for what you have, and by giving to people who are in desperate need, you live out the meaning of Thanksgiving. May your Thanksgiving be blessed!

Gratefully yours in St. Francis,

Brother Andrew Brophy, OFM

Executive Director