Currents News Staff
CRS Rice Bowl combines the Lenten practices of praying, fasting and giving alms to help people all over the world, one bowl of rice at a time.
Catholic Relief Services sends cardboard rice bowls to parishes or schools. The donations deposited inside are used to help feed the hungry around the world, and in dioceses throughout the United States.
“As Catholics, we are a both/and people called to support people who are hungry here and around the world. Because we believe that every person is a child of God. Every person has human dignity and so is worth supporting,” said Mike Laskey, Director of Life and Justice Ministries.
People like 16-year-old Annet in Uganda, a refugee and orphan from South Sudan, who cares for her three younger siblings, benefit from these bowls. Each day she struggles to cook, clean and provide water for them in very unstable conditions.
And then there is Christyan, who fled Sri Lanka to India during the war. He returned home to find his family’s farm destroyed. CRS helped him, his wife and three children restart his farm so they could take care of themselves.
Since beginning in 1975, nearly $300 million dollars have been raised during each year’s 40 days of Lent.