This slide from the diocesan Social Action Lunch and Learn session Sept. 5 on Zoom depicts a community growing project.
By Lindsay Steele
The Catholic Messenger
Hunger was prevalent during Jesus’ time in Galilee; scholars estimate that two-thirds of its residents lived with severe or extreme hunger. Mark Swanson, a Protestant minister and regional director of Growing Hope Globally, shared this message during a diocesan Social Action Lunch and Learn session Sept. 5 on Zoom. In the Scriptures, “we find story after story of people experiencing hunger.” Yet, there is also an impulse of hope and response. “The question becomes, ‘How do we respond to hunger?’”
Swanson’s presentation, “Hope’s Impact: Rural Parishes and Beyond Responding to Global Hunger,” coincided with the Season of Creation, a month-long ecumenical celebration. He shared ways that farming communities across the country are working together to ease hunger in developing nations through Growing Hope Globally.
Two Ohio farmers founded Growing Hope Globally (GHG), then known as Food Resource Bank, in 1999. They envisioned local farmers donating a portion of their grain to countries where hunger is prevalent, Swanson explained. However, the couple learned that shipping grain internationally was expensive — nearly 15 times the cost of the grain — and could “undercut everything the farmers in those (overseas) communities were trying to do to eke out a living.”
The couple shifted their focus from supplying food to supporting agricultural development projects such as training on improved farming practices, hygiene and nutrition; providing access to land and clean water; and providing women’s empowerment and leadership opportunities. Today, GHG financially supports Catholic Relief Services and other international partners through 45 projects.
Swanson shared the story of Delma, a farmer from Honduras dealing with the challenges of changing weather patterns. She struggled to dry her coffee bean crop due to unpredictable weather and heavy rainfall. GHG supported Church World Service and local partner Comisión de Acción Social Menonita (CASM) to provide Delma with training and materials to build a solar dryer greenhouse. Her coffee beans now sell for twice as much and she invests her profits in livestock and other projects. “She and her husband are very thankful for the support they’ve received and want to help others.”
Rural communities, including several in southeast Iowa, play a huge role in financing these projects, Swanson said. While one-time direct donations are welcome, community groups composed of churches, farmers, agribusinesses and civic groups can generate 5-6 times as much money when they work together. For example, farmers can donate profits from a portion of their crops each year and local trucking companies and grain elevators can reduce or eliminate costs for local shipping and grain storage. Local churches can raise funds to offset costs. The efficiency of the international partners ensures that the donations stretch further; $55 in programming can help one person become food secure, he said.
Deacon Kent Ferris, the Davenport Diocese’s Social Action director, said rural churches “might be best positioned to make an outsized impact when it comes to responding to hunger and its effects in the developing world.”
To view a recording of this Lunch and Learn session, go to https://youtu.be/3_F48BiOCu0.
