Rice Bowl is an annual campaign sponsored by Catholic Relief Services that engages young people and adults in a Lenten program of making small donations through Lent by forgoing a soda or donut or energy bar and putting that money in a small bowl or cup each day. Lent is a time to focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Rice Bowl helps us focus on almsgiving. The program started back in 1975 to respond to great famines in Africa.

This year CRS is asking us to use a picture we can download from the CRS Rice Bowl website to remind us of the children in need and our own bowl to do something about it. The website also provides a means to electronically submit our donations on or around Palm Sunday.

Where does the money go? How does CRS help? CRS is one of the great not-for-profit organizations in the world. CRS touches over 150,000,000 lives every year in over 120 countries. This year, in addition to teaching how to grow crops, provide clean water programs, provide livestock, teach and organize micro banking programs, teach marketing skills for crops and products, CRS is using their international workforce to train communities on social distancing and hand washing and COVID prevention programs.

The photo accompanying this article is of Hellen Gaya in Homa Bay, on the western edge of Kenya, near Kisumu on Lake Victoria. These farmers learned how to grow bananas and other crops in the rich volcanic soil. Another organization had begun construction of the water project here but never completed the work. CRS completed the project working through the diocese and then taught the farmers how to grow profitable crops. CRS assisted in providing the banana plants and then also helped getting the crops to market. CRS helps in so many ways.

If you have any questions or want help getting your Rice Bowl Program started in your parish or school, please call the Office of the Permanent Diaconate, and leave a message for Global Fellow, Deacon Tim Donohue.

DEACON DONOHUE IS PERMANENT DEACON OF THE ARCHDIOCESE ASSIGNED TO HOLY NAME PARISH, WEST ROXBURY, AND A CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES GLOBAL FELLOW.