Are you in need of some Caribbean flair? There is still time to purchase your ticket to The Hope for Haitians Committee and Food For The Poor's 10th annual fundraising event An Evening in the Tropics, Saturday, Sept. 10 at Giovanni's Restaurant & Convention Center. Come enjoy the melodies of a steel drummer and a heavenly slice of key lime pie as Illinois residents gather to raise money to build a village in Mazere, Haiti, and provide school sponsorships for 200 children from the Rockford Friendship Village and the Hope Friendship Village.

An Evening in the Tropics will include a cocktail reception, silent auction, and formal dinner with friends and members of the surrounding communities. Bidding on silent auction prizes such as exclusive art and collectibles from the Caribbean and Latin America, designer jewelry, vacations, golf and dining packages offer opportunities for guests to shop and donate to the cause.

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There is still time to follow through with your New Year's resolutions. Lace-up your sneakers, and register to participate in Food For The Poor's nationwide "5K Walk/Run For Hunger" at Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach, Fla. on Sept. 24. The sixth annual fundraiser in Deerfield Beach, Fla. kick-starts events nationwide: Oct. 15 in Fort Mill, S.C., Nov. 12 in Birmingham, Ala., Nov. 19 in Miami, Fla., and April 7 in Oklahoma City, Okla.

"As the previous hometown of Food For The Poor, Deerfield Beach is proud to have been selected as the site for the kick-off of the national series of 5K fundraisers, which will promote healthy activities in support of the very worthy cause of fighting global hunger," said Deerfield Beach Mayor, Peggy Noland.

Prizes for fundraising through Dec. 1, 2011 will be awarded to individuals in each bracket:
-$5,000 and above – Fundraisers will receive their choice of an Apple iPad or 32' Flat Screen TV.
-$2,500 and above – Fundraisers will receive their choice of a Wii Fit or Kindle
-$1,000 and above – Fundraisers will receive their choice of a Portable DVD Player or Digital Camera. FULL POST

Food For The Poor recently received a generous donation of food and other critically needed supplies from our corporate partners who want to help us alleviate the suffering of hungry children and their families. But in order to provide this aid as quickly as possible, we need your help to cover shipping and distribution expenses. Every dollar you give today will provide more than $19 worth of lifesaving aid to children and families in need.

Please help by visiting www.foodforthepoor.org/shippingappeal and making a donation today.

EVERY gift matters. EVERY gift will help save lives.

To replace dangerous pit latrines and provide schools and communities with access to proper sanitation, Food For The Poor has launched an initiative to install eco-friendly, waterless toilets in locations throughout St. Catherine's parish, Jamaica.

"In our efforts to bring sustainable solutions to those
we serve, we were eager to invest in a test of this environmentally friendly technology," said Robin Mahfood, Food For The Poor's President/CEO. "This innovative solution will allow Food For The Poor to improve the living conditions of the poor, regardless of their proximity to water."

After a three-month trial period, Food For The Poor will determine whether this environmentally friendly sanitation system will be included in schools and homes constructed by the nonprofit organization in Haiti and Jamaica. Initial test sites include Quarry Hill, St. John's Road, Naseberry Grove, Kitson Town, Jobs Lane, and Macca Tree. The toilets have a low annual maintenance cost and a life span of more than 50 years. Enviro Options has tested and evaluated the Enviro Loo since 1993 to ensure the product is a safe, sustainable solution. FULL POST

Register to vote in Pepsi's Refresh Project, and with a click of your mouse you can empower high school students to establish Food For The Poor-related clubs. Samantha Kerker, 16, passionately believes all high school students should have the opportunity to witness poverty firsthand, and to give back to their community before they graduate.

Samantha's idea to start "Students For The Poor" clubs in Palm Beach County was inspired by the questions her peers asked about her Food For The Poor mission trip to Nicaragua. She found the travel experience to a developing country to be so unlike her experiences in the United States.

"When I returned home from Nicaragua, I had a lot of explaining to do," said Samantha, who tie-dyed her way to building her first Food For The Poor home for a destitute Nicaraguan family in December 2010. "I had to explain to my friends that in remote villages in developing countries, some people live in dilapidated shacks with dirt floors and have to walk for miles to find water. Their priorities are their immediate needs for survival – food, water, and shelter – not electricity to charge cell phones or to power laptop computers." FULL POST

An art exhibition may be a delight for the eyes, but the creativity it takes to make an image come to life takes talent and passion. Food For The Poor is also passionate about what it does on behalf of the poor, and is excited about its first "Art Embracing Hope" or "Härt Exhibition" that it will host in three South Florida cities this fall.

A kaleidoscope of nearly two dozen international and local artists will delight, dazzle and inspire with their visual interpretations. Every work of art is for sale, and each piece sold will allow Food For The Poor to provide much needed help to hundreds of destitute families in the countries we serve.

Here's how it will work: At each venue, there will be a silent auction, a raffle and an opportunity to donate. A percentage of each art piece sold also will go to the artist. Some of the drawings to be auctioned were created by the children Food For The Poor serves in Latin America.

To read more, click here.

In a move to help Haitian farmers as well as to supply food even more efficiently to the hungry in that country, the international relief and development agency Food For The Poor will start buying rice from 2,000 farmers in the area most affected by the 2010 earthquake. The partnership will begin today and will provide a third of the rice that the charity needs for its feeding programs in Haiti.

"This initiative is going to help the rice growers increase their production and grow a better strain of rice through help we are providing," said Robin Mahfood, President/CEO of Food For The Poor. "We are happy we're able to work with the farmers in this way, and we believe it will help us better meet the needs of the poor we serve."

The program will begin with Food For The Poor buying about 200 tons of rice each month, but Mahfood said he hopes that will continue to grow as the farmers have more success with their crops. "We will buy everything they produce," he said. FULL POST

Rubble that has lined vacant sections of Port-au-Prince since the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake is finally being cleared to make way for much needed housing in the Caribbean nation's capital and most populous city. Food For The Poor is about to start a major housing development project on the outskirts of the city with the Inter-American Development Bank.

"I am thrilled because the construction projects we've been able to accomplish in other parts of Haiti can now begin closer to Port-au-Prince," said Angel Aloma, Executive Director of Food For The Poor. "Thanks to our donors, we have built more than 2,200 homes in Haiti since the earthquake. People desperate for shelter will now have a chance to move from the tents into sound houses."

Late last week, Food For The Poor, the Inter-American Development Bank, and Fonds d' Assistance Économique et Social made the commitment to construct the first phase of 100 houses. The homes will be built on land donated by the Haitian government in Orangers, which is located just north of Port-au-Prince. The Inter-American Development Bank will fund the site development and half of the cost of every home, while the other half will be matched by Food For The Poor's donors. FULL POST

In May, 11-year-old Rachel Wheeler traveled to Haiti to dedicate the village for which she fundraised for two years. It was built with the nonprofit Food For The Poor. The residents in "Rachel's Village" greeted her with a hero's welcome, clapping and singing songs of praise and thanks. It was here, in the coastal village of Kay Piti, in Leogane, among the new vibrantly painted homes, that Rachel realized that not all children are able to attend school. Determined to make a difference, Rachel's new goal is to build a school.

"I want to build a school because they need education to make their lives better so they can learn and teach their own children how to have a better life," said Rachel Wheeler, who was named one of America's 2011 top 10 youth volunteers out of approximately 29,000 applicants.

Rachel's school will be constructed in Reap de Morel, Leogane, near the epicenter of the January 2010 earthquake. Prior to the earthquake, 250 students from kindergarten to the sixth grade were registered and attended the school. Classes are currently held in a one-room, makeshift structure that floods when it rains. Rusted sheet-metal, pieces of wood and blue tarps offer students little protection from the weather. FULL POST

Food For The Poor's 'The Least Of These' was named winner of a second place Bronze Telly Award for bringing awareness to the desperate plight of children who suffer horrific living conditions in developing countries. The moving production highlighting personal stories of children in Haiti and Guatemala was selected out of approximately 11,000 entries from all 50 states and numerous countries for portraying the harsh realities of extreme destitution in a compelling way.

"Food For The Poor donors have been saving lives for 29 years in the Caribbean and Latin America," said Robin Mahfood, Food For The Poor's President/CEO. "Our donors have empowered us to be the premier providers of aid in Haiti, Jamaica, Guyana and almost all countries of Central America. "This aid takes the form of life-saving food, water, permanent housing, education, medicine, micro-enterprise and self-sustaining projects – all this while maintaining an administrative cost ratio of less than 4 percent."

To read more, click here.