FAMVIN: The International Vincentian Family

“In three weeks, we can cure a kid that is looked like they’re half dead. We can cure them just like an antibiotic. It’s just, boom!” “It’s a revolution in nutritional affairs,” says Dr. Milton Tectonidis, the chief nutritionist for Doctors Without Borders.

In a message to the U.N. Food Summit, Pope Benedict called hunger and malnutrition “unacceptable in a world that, in reality, possesses production levels, resources and sufficient knowledge to put an end to these dramas and their consequences.”

St. John’s Bread and Life soup kitchen in Brooklyn, NY, founded 26 years ago by Daughter of Charity Bernadette Szymczak (d. 1998) and still served by the Daughters and a Sister of Charity, is featured in today’s New York Times. Technology has an important role in services they provide. Read the article.

50 economists examine ten of the world’s biggest challenges and place as Number 1 because of its “immediate and important consequences for improving the wellbeing of poor people around the world,” to combat malnutrition in the 140 million children in the world who are undernourished.

“The feast of Corpus Christi is an invitation to Christians to work for the elimination of world hunger” writes Benedict XVI. He adds “Dear brothers and sisters, may the feast of Corpus Domini be an occasion to grow in this concrete attention to our brothers, especially the poor”

Yesterday the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Longview, Washington USA broke ground on a new foot facility, which will add about 1800 square fee to its food bank. The food bank served some 4000 people last year. But contributions to an important annual food drive plummeted 25 per cent from last year. Read [...]

NEW YORK, MAY 19, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The global food crisis should not be measured just in terms of market costs, but also in terms of the mental and spiritual costs faced by those who cannot provide for themselves and their family, affirmed the Holy See.

It’s an old garage with a restaurant permit. On May 18, 1983 the Saint Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen opened in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania USA. Since then, every day it has served a midday meal: 40 on that first day; up to 400 on a day, since, for a monthly average of about 10,000 meals. Read [...]

More than 25% of the food available for consumption in the United States gets thrown away. If we could recover a quarter of that waste, we could feed 20 million people.

The Office of the Superior General asked that this notice soliciting input on Food Security for group of Catholic-inspired NGO’s and Religious Institutes be placed on the famvin web site. Please note that they request input by May 14.

In Oregon, USA an auxiliary of a local food share program has formed. Women Ending Hunger’s purpose is “getting to the root causes of hunger and stopping it at that level.” Their community-based plan looks to have an impact on public policy, economic development, education and more. Read the story.

The rice shortage throughout the world has caused a writer for a Web log about finances to reflect on the topic of hoarding. He doesn’t like it: “A hoarder… buys stuff and holds on to it, hoping to sell after the price goes up.” But he approves of what he calls “stock-piling”. See what you [...]

Rising costs of food and gasoline have created financial pressure extreme enough that people who have never before received social services are now accepting help. The number of guests at a Sisters of Charity soup kitchen in Charleston has increased recently by half. Read the story.

“The real resolution of hunger and the issue of people facing hunger is not giving them a food box, but dealing with the underlying issues of why they need that in the first place,” says the executive director of a food share program in Oregon, USA. Read the article.

A brutal convergence of events has hit an unprepared global market, and grain prices are sky high. The world’s poor suffer most. Hunger related riots have occurred in 17 countries. Food is becoming speculation tool replacing mortgages.