Food For The Poor Thanks Its Donors and Volunteers

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (April 22, 2013) – In honor of National Volunteer Week, April 21-27, Food For The Poor celebrates its donors and countless volunteers for the integral roles they serve in caring for the destitute.

“Food For The Poor recognizes that all its donors are crucial to the charity’s mission of saving lives,” said Angel Aloma, Food For The Poor’s Executive Director. “Volunteers are continual sources of action and change, because they share their genuine enthusiasm and fundraising causes with friends and family members.”

Two years ago, Food For The Poor donor Kevin Carges spoke to members of the Global Solidarity ministry at Church of the Transfiguration in Pittsford, N.Y. After describing how he and other volunteers from the group Eight 4 World Hope partner with Food For The Poor to fund schools in Jamaica, the Transfiguration group was inspired to partner with Food For The Poor to build a community of 20 two-room homes in El Salvador. In February, members of the Transfiguration group traveled to El Salvador to paint five of the homes, and meet the beneficiary families.

For another supporter who lived with cystic fibrosis, what started as a school project and mission trip to Jamaica led his parents to create a Champions For The Poor website in his memory. To honor their son Ben Tolmei’s spirit, his parents are raising money to build a home in Jamaica. In June, they will travel to Jamaica to personally hand the keys to the new home to a family.

In addition to shelter, other supporters are raising awareness and money to install water wells, as well as build schools, clinics and soy product factories.

Ideas of how you can make a difference:  

• Become a Champion For The Poor:
  Food For The Poor’s personal fundraising program encourages donors to create their own personalized web pages for causes close to their hearts. There are ten distinct categories; Birthdays, Anniversaries, Weddings, Graduations, Individual Causes, Group Causes, In Loving Memory, Faith-based, Rebuild Haiti, and Businesses Giving Back.


• Become a volunteer ambassador:
  Present Food For The Poor’s mission at events in your local community. Training is provided.
  
  
• Volunteer, organize or attend an annual event:
  Host a Party With A Purpose to benefit Food For The Poor, or volunteer at a fundraiser.


• Involve Your Church, School or Community Organization:
  Students from elementary to college can find creative ways to raise funds through events on campus and within their communities. Start a Students For The Poor chapter at your school or host an All-Nighter for the Poor to increase awareness of malnutrition and to fund self-sustaining solutions to alleviate hunger in developing countries.
  
  
• Become a corporate volunteer:
  Get involved in fundraising, and travel to the countries we serve to do hands-on projects.


• Planned Giving:
  Donors are able to help others while making prudent and beneficial financial choices for themselves and family members.


• Employer Matching Gifts:
  Food For The Poor encourages donors to ask their employers to match charitable donations.


• Request a Speaker:
  Food For The Poor’s Speakers’ Bureau arranges speaking engagements for churches, organizes church and school mission projects, and manages national outreach projects.

Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 95 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.