AMURT’s Food For All (FFA) program in Washington DC has seen a four-fold increase in demand for food over the past four weeks, increasing from 140 weekly food recipients in late March to 503 in late April. The new clients include senior citizens with underlying health issues, people with disabilities, single parents with children to feed all day at home and the recently unemployed, especially those laid off from restaurants.
Paul Ziade is AMURT’s Rural Programs Coordinator, and runs the Cash-for-Work (CFW) program. Initiated by AMURT and joint-funded by the UN’s Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, it is primarily a response to economic desperation exacerbated by the influx of displaced persons into two of Haiti's most impoverished communes.
AMURT has been involved with the hunger problem amongst the poor and the homeless in Los Angeles for the last 25 years. Our breakfast feeding through Mama D's Kitchen is legendary amongst the folks of Skid Row. It makes a huge difference in their lives. The program is maintained entirely by volunteers and public donations.
AMURT in partnership with Kinder Not Hilfe and Catholic Relief Services run ten Child-Friendly Spaces in Port-au-Prince for 4,000 children. The purpose of the centers is to help children affected by the earthquake restore normalcy and improve overall well-being in their lives with psychosocial and educational support. Besides psychosocial, educational, and creative activities children in the Child-Friendly Spaces program receive nutritional biscuits in addition to a hot meal of rice, beans and vegetables.
Food for All is a non-profit organization that strives to provide emergency food to those who are in temporary situations of need. Our clients are generally elderly citizens, handicapped, or single mothers with young children. Each week we accept referrals from social workers who have been contacted by individuals, and in some cases, we receive calls directly from individuals in need.