Get Ready To Fill The Rice Bowl, Folks!

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia marks the beginning of its 41^st consecutive year participating in Catholic Relief Services’ Rice Bowl, a nationwide Lenten faith-in-action program for families and faith communities. Administered by Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Rice Bowl encourages participants to live in solidarity with the poor through prayer, fasting and alms giving. Bishop John J. McIntyre will preside at this year’s Rice Bowl kick-off event, at which he will bless the rice bowls.

  

Thursday, February 4, 2016

11:30 a.m.

Saint Joan of Arc Church Food Cupboard

2025 East Atlantic Street

Philadelphia, PA 19134

Cheryl Mrazik, CRS Northeast/Mid Atlantic Regional office, and Anne H. Ayella, CRS Diocesan Director will share how CRS’s Rice Bowl touches people globally. Sister Linda Lukiewski, SSJ, Pastoral Minister at Saint Joan of Arc Church will offer details on Saint Joan of Arc’s food cupboard which serves the neighborhoods of Harrowgate and West Kensington.

Through Rice Bowl, families are encouraged to place money that they would have spent on meals into the rice bowls to remember those who are poor and hungry.  For each of the six weeks of Lent, there is a recipe and a story from a different country, focusing on a family or individual. This year’s featured countries are Columbia, Laos, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Honduras.

Parishioners in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia donated $342,379 to CRS’s Rice Bowl during Lent 2015. Of that amount, about $85,000 stayed in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and helped the Office for Nutritional Development Services fight hunger in the region. The remainder was distributed to Catholic Relief Services to combat hunger and other basic human needs overseas.

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. 

Note: For more information on CRS’s Rice Bowl please contact Anne H. Ayella, CRS Archdiocesan Director at 267-262-8901. For more information on Catholic Relief Services please visit http://orb.crs.org