The Doral Overseas Chinese Business Chamber will honor the work of the international relief and development organization Food For The Poor on May 14, when the chamber has its second annual gala to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

Food For The Poor has had a long and fruitful partnership with the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), resulting in numerous projects in several of the countries served by Food For The Poor. For three years, Taiwan worked through Food For The Poor to send 40 containers of rice each month to Haiti. Then, immediately after the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake, Taiwan again stepped up to help with a donation of more than 400 tons of rice. The two organizations also have partnered on computer, agriculture and aquaculture projects, providing long-term solutions to hunger, not only in Haiti, but in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador.

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This Easter, a group of generous donors has agreed to match, dollar-for-dollar (up to $500,000), donations received before April 24th. If you send your gift before Easter Sunday, it will be doubled to feed twice as many hungry children.

Meet the Gelen family of Haiti. Can you see that the baby is malnourished and the boy is too thin for his age? They live in an area that grows rice, but they can't find any buyers for their rice, so there is no money for fruits, vegetables, and protein. Last year's rice crop was spoiled by floods, so there is even less food than normal. Like thousands of other Haitian children, the young Gelens are suffering from malnutrition, slowly starving to death.

Will these children survive past Easter? Their fate may be decided by those who choose to respond to this call -- thank you for choosing life. FULL POST

The months of April, May and June are traditionally an idyllic time of the year for saying "I do" – but the nuptials for one pair has taken on an international twist, one where wedding guests are encouraged to help people more than 3,100 miles away.

The couple, Nancy Childress and Ken Haffey, sent out this request along with their wedding invitations, "If you were considering a present, we would love for you to support a freshwater project in Haiti set up in honor of our marriage."

What was the response? "Surprise by some, but excitement and delight from others who understand who we are," said Childress. "We're both passionate about doing God's will and helping others; this is what's really important in life. We're not rich, but we don't need anything more materially; we have all we need."

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Civics teachers at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Va., challenged eighth graders to research how they could "Take Action to Change Our World." The program not only satisfied the curriculum, it also motivated students to take action to save lives, one child at a time.

"The thing that I found during my research that inspired me the most is that 75 percent of Haitians live on less than $2 a day," said Christine McGrath, 13, Church of the Nativity parishioner in Burke, Va. "That is less than the cost of the two yogurts I eat every day."

Christine's school project raised more than $5,600 toward Church of the Nativity's Operation Starfish gift for the international relief and development organization Food For The Poor. The donation will provide children the opportunity to attend school, and construct critically needed shelter to relocate a family from either a tent city or a dilapidated shack in a garbage-filled swamp.

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Children suffering from life-threatening malnutrition will be provided with nourishing food through an innovative initiative by Food For The Poor and Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL).

Hormel Foods, one of the nation's largest manufacturers and marketers of consumer-branded meat and food products, has introduced Spammy™, a fortified, shelf-stable turkey spread to help address childhood malnutrition. Over the past 18 months, the charity and Hormel Foods have worked in family centers and orphanages in Guatemala to introduce the food to children and their mothers.

"Through our partnership with Hormel Foods, we are able to provide much-needed protein to the women and children of Guatemala, and we are already seeing progress," said Robin Mahfood, President/CEO for Food For The Poor. "The children who eat Spammy™ are more active, their grades are improving, and overall, they are happier and healthier." FULL POST

Powerade, March Madness' "Official Sports Drink of the NCAA," late last year entered another arena in a big way – the fight against cholera in Haiti. The Coca-Cola Brand donated 2,538 cases of its beverages from plants in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to Food For The Poor, the third-largest international relief and development organization in the United States.

Today jump-starts March Madness, and Powerade's presence will be prominent throughout the college basketball's tournament. The sport's drink Game Science campaign tag line, Focus. Hustle. Hydrate. Believe., also reflects the mission of Food For The Poor's emergency relief actions.

"The donation of Powerade has helped to give dehydrated cholera victims the strength and energy necessary to beat the waterborne illness," said Angel Aloma, Food For The Poor's Executive Director. "Cholera and malaria do not kill people in First World countries where there is access to medicine. In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, destitute children are often emaciated and their immune systems are compromised." FULL POST

Climate change, disease and natural disasters are all taking a toll on the world's clean water supply, making this life-sustaining liquid nearly impossible to obtain for some in developing countries.

"Every 20 seconds, a young child either dies or becomes deathly ill from ingesting dirty or contaminated water in some parts of the world," said Angel Aloma, Executive Director of Food For The Poor. "Many of us don't give much thought about the water we use, when we want it, we go to the sink and turn on the faucet. But millions don't have this luxury – their water source is typically a murky ravine. Others are forced to walk miles, several times a day, to get to a clean water source."

Ten water purification and filtration units are currently in the process of being installed in the Cap-Haiten region of northern Haiti. In 2010, Food For The Poor completed 188 water projects throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, including 110 water wells and 30 water purification and filtration units in the Artibonite region of Haiti in response to the cholera outbreak.

To read more, click here.

A redesign of Food For The Poor's personal fundraising program encourages donors to create their own personalized web pages for causes close to their hearts. As Champions For The Poor, donors are able to share their passion for providing relief to the destitute by engaging their friends and families.

Two years ago, a South Florida fifth-grader utilized this technology to raise more than $162,000 to build a village in Haiti. As a result of her success she has been named one of Florida's top two youth volunteers for 2011. For another donor, what started as a personal project requirement to graduate from the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, led a teenager to tie-dye her way to building homes in Nicaragua. In addition to shelter, other supporters are raising awareness and money to install water wells, and build schools, clinics and soy product factories.

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At a time when soaring food and fuel prices are threatening nonprofits' ability to get lifesaving food to the poor, Friends of WLRN is reaching out once again to help Food For The Poor. When radio listeners support WLRN through the station's fund drive, Friends of WLRN will in turn donate a portion of the proceeds to feed hungry and malnourished children in Haiti.

Friends of WLRN has dedicated its fundraising time from 4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16, to 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, to help Food For The Poor. For every $100 committed by listeners who call to support the station during that time, Friends of WLRN will donate $18 to feed a hungry child in Haiti for six months. Through the station's generosity in two campaigns last year, more than 1,300 children were fed for six months through Food For The Poor's feeding programs.

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The leader of the Boca Grande Hope for Haitians Committee and the Haiti Project Manager for Food For The Poor brought a message of gratitude to those attending the March 2 event in Boca Grande.

"Merci, merci, merci...thank you so much for impacting, changing, transforming, restoring, for giving life," said Delane Bailey-Herd, Haiti Project Manager for Food For The Poor. "The residents of Boca Grande Friendship Village in Pierre Payen, Haiti, say 'Next to God, there is Boca Grande, Fla.' I know you cannot even imagine that in such a short space of time you have made such an amazing, eternal impact in one community."

Ben Scott, chair of the committee, traveled to Haiti on Feb. 14 to meet the residents, walk through the concrete block, two-room homes, watch classes in action, and taste the fresh, clean water that means life and health in the country. More than 200 mothers, fathers and children have moved from homes made of mud and sticks into 40 sturdy homes in the village. FULL POST