Friday, January 20, 2012

"When I Was Hungry..."

On a trip to Nicaragua in 2008, my father came across a group of children. He offered them toys, but one of the children looked him straight in the eyes and asked if he could have food instead. My dad says he knew in that moment, he was looking into the eyes of starvation. What child turns down toys for food?

It had always been a wish shared by my father and I that one day we would be able to produce our own food here at Matthew 25: Ministries. This moment in Nicaragua pushed us to really start thinking about how we could make it happen, and start moving forward on planning the facility.

Prasco generously came alongside us in this vision. With their support, this dream became a reality. In 2010, we opened the Prasco Food Processing Center here in our facility. We are now able to package a nutritionally enhanced rice-soy blend for only 9 cents per serving and assemble 30 seven-serving bags of food per minute.

The creation of the Prasco Food Processing Center has given us the capability to quickly respond to natural disasters as well as provide on-going aid to the hungry. It allowed us to send 1 million meals to earthquake/tsunami victims in Japan. It enabled us to get desperately needed protein into the diets of orphans in Haiti. And it has fed thousands of hungry people right here in Greater Cincinnati.

Today a small team of Matthew 25: Ministries staff visited Prasco for a presentation to express our deep appreciation for their continued support. During the presentation, my father and I both spoke about the profound impact Prasco has made on our organization and the lives of those we serve. We then had the privilege of serving the rice-soy blend to the staff at Prasco so that they could taste it. It was a big hit!

It was such a meaningful afternoon spent with dear friends and partners. We are so blessed by Prasco’s generosity and their heart for the poorest of the poor.


















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