Article re: Food For The Poor

Teaching Haitians to feed themselves for a lifetime—Food For The Poor brings modern fishing technology to primitive Haitian villages

COCONUT CREEK— Destitute fishermen in Haiti who once struggled to feed their children can now catch 300 to 400 pounds of fish per day, thanks to a recent gift of state-of-the-art fishing equipment from Food For The Poor.

“They only want a better life for their children. These fishermen used to row leaky boats a few hundred feet from shore and catch fish you could fit into a small aquarium. Now they’re hauling in hundreds of pounds of queen snapper that can feed a small village,” said Robin Mahfood, president and CEO of Food For The Poor Inc., Florida’s largest charitable organization.

The South Florida charity installed three model fishing villages in impoverished communities on Haiti’s north coast in May. Poor fishermen were outfitted with everything needed to catch deep-sea fish such as queen snapper, kingfish and yellow-eye snapper. Each fishing village received four 24-foot fiberglass boats with outboard engines, 100-quart coolers, safety equipment, a locked shed for equipment storage, global positioning system (GPS) fish finders and kerosene freezers to store catches and sell them to local markets.

The villages were funded by generous donations from churches and donors in the United States. Food For The Poor also mapped the coastline of Haiti to find the best fishing areas and trained the fishermen on how to use the GPS systems and market their catches. Each boat is commanded by one captain and up to five men or women. Like crop rotation taught to farmers, the fishermen were trained to prevent over-fishing and depletion of fish stock.

Mahfood explained that the fishermen are required to contribute a minimum of 5 percent of their catches to feed the community’s poorest residents and are also responsible for training the younger men and women so they can pass along the new fishing skills on to the next generation. Food For The Poor’s staff in Haiti monitors all of the fishing villages.

The poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haitians lose one out of three children to the deadly effects of malnutrition, according to the United Nations.Food For The Poor started humanitarian aid in Haiti in 1985. The third largest relief and international development organization in the nation, Food For The Poor works in 16 countries across the Caribbean and Latin America. Since 1982, they have provided clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and emergency relief to the poorest of the poor across these countries. More than 96 percent of all donations to the organization go directly to programs that help the poor.

For more information, please visit the charity’s website at http://www.foodforthepoor.org/.

The Reading of Psalm 23

There was once a Shakespearean actor who was known
everywhere for his one-man show of readings and
recitations from the classics. He would always end his
performance with a dramatic reading of Psalm 23. Each
night, without exception, as the actor began his
recitation -- "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not
want" -- the crowd would listen attentively. And then,
at the conclusion of the psalm, they would rise in
thunderous applause in appreciation of the actor's
incredible ability to bring the verse to life.

But one night, just before the actor was to offer his
customary recital of Psalm 23, a young man from the
audience spoke up. "Sir, do you mind, if tonight, I
recite Psalm 23?"

The actor was quite taken aback by this unusual
request, but he allowed the young man to come forward
and to stand front and center on the stage to recite
the psalm, knowing that the ability of this unskilled
youth would be no match for his own talent. With a
soft voice, the young man began to recite the words of
the psalm. When he was finished, there was no
applause. There was no standing ovation as on other
nights. All that could be heard was the sound of
weeping. The audience had been so moved by the young
man's recitation that every eye was full of tears.
Amazed by what he had heard, the actor said to the
youth, "I don't understand. I have been performing
Psalm 23 for years. I have a lifetime of experience
and training, but I have never been able to move an
audience as you have tonight. Tell me, what is your
secret?"

The young man humbly replied, "Well, sir, you know the
psalm ... but I know The Shepherd."

It really makes a difference.

Author Unknown
Jeremiah 24:7 "I will give them a heart to know me,
that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will
be their God, for they will return to me with all
their heart."