2700 N. Military Trail, Suite 240
PO Box 273908
Boca Raton, Florida 33427-3908
Formerly known as Cross International Catholic Outreach
1-800-914-2420
Project 9021
Vitafood:
Life-Saving Nutrition for the Hungry
— Worldwide —
For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat…
Matthew 25:35
www.crossCATHOLIC.org
Vitafood
Project 9021
Project Synopsis
Description
Ship containers of nutrient-rich Vitafood to developing nations, so local ministries can feed starving
children and families.
Purpose
To fight hunger while reaching the poor with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Cost
The cost to ship a
40 ft. container, or
272,160 Vitafood
meals, varies by
country due to
customs fees, port
charges, distance,
etc. For example,
on average it costs
$11,000 to send a
container to Haiti,
but just $6,500 to
send one to
Nicaragua.
Highlights
• Vitafood meals
are nutrient-rich
foods scientifically
designed to meet
the dietary needs
of chronically
malnourished
children.
• The meals are
sealed in airtight packets to maximize shelf-life and fit as many as possible in a shipping container.
• Vitafood is generously donated to Cross Catholic Outreach and hand-packed by volunteers. All we
need are the funds to ship the meals to starving people around the world.
• It takes just $1 to provide approximately 25 meals for malnourished children in Haiti, or 31 meals
for the hungry in Nicaragua.
• Your gift to Cross Catholic Outreach for Vitafood shipping will sustain Catholic feeding programs
the poor rely on for survival, while opening doors for our ministry partners to share the Gospel.
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Vitafood
Project 9021
The Need
Every six seconds, a child dies
of hunger or a hunger-related
problem.
That’s 14,400 deaths per day.
5,256,000 per year.
These children are among the
925 million people around the
world who currently suffer from
chronic malnutrition.
Of that number, untold millions
also suffer from another kind of
hunger — a spiritual hunger that
can only be satisfied by the Bread
of Life. Their souls yearn for the
riches of the faith handed down,
once for all, from Christ and the
Apostles. They are starving for an
encounter with God.
Without Christ’s hope, the poor
despair. Without a nutritious diet,
their children begin to exhibit the
signs of chronic malnutrition:
stunted growth, distended bellies,
rust-colored hair, lethargy and
impaired mental and physical
abilities. The longer their bodies
are deprived of vital nutrients, the
slimmer their chances of surviving
to adulthood.
As a result, impoverished
families get trapped in a vicious
cycle. They are forced to choose
between investing in their children’s Rust-colored hair, often seen on children in developing nations, is a sign of
severe malnutrition.
education — their only hope for
achieving a better future — or
spending their meager earnings on a few much-needed morsels of food. The result: hunger trumps
school, and the children find themselves on the street, begging for their family’s next meal.
To break this tragic cycle, Cross Catholic Outreach (formerly known as Cross International
Catholic Outreach) partners with Catholic schools and orphanages that take a holistic approach to
the fight against poverty — an approach that meets the nutritional, educational and spiritual needs
of the poor. An indispensable part of this effort is our Vitafood program, which sustains Gospelcentered ministries of mercy around the world.
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Vitafood
Project 9021
By shipping Vitafood overseas, Cross Catholic Outreach is supplementing school feeding
programs and saving poor children from the painful effects of malnutrition.
Ministry Description
By supporting nutrition programs in developing nations, Cross Catholic Outreach is giving children
hope for a better future. Daily meals restore the health of the sick, strengthen the bodies of the
malnourished and provide an incentive for poor families to send their children to Catholic schools.
“When we ask a ministry what their needs are… food is almost always at the top of their list,” says
Cross Catholic Outreach President Jim Cavnar. “To this day, food is the most requested item. It seems
there is always a demand for food… just as there is always a hungry child.”
An important part of our nutritional aid to the poor is Vitafood. Cross Catholic Outreach’s ministry
partners rely on shipments of healthy, cost-effective Vitafood to provide hundreds of thousands of
meals for hungry children and families.
The wonderful thing about Vitafood is that it is truly nutritious! The fortified rice and soy protein
meals are scientifically designed to reverse the effects of chronic malnutrition. Vitafood comes in a
number of varieties and can be prepared in different ways to suit local tastes, but the object is always
the same: to provide the optimal balance of vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, fat and carbohydrates
the children’s hungry bodies need. While the formula was designed to save the lives of severely
malnourished and starving children, the ingredients also improve the health and physical well-being
of children and adults who are no longer in immediate danger of starvation.
Because the Vitafood has been donated to Cross Catholic Outreach, the only remaining expense is
the shipping cost to send it overseas to the countries that need it most. The Vitafood meals are
already packed and ready to go to the dedicated ministries who carefully distribute them to needy
churches, schools, orphanages and feeding centers.
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Vitafood
Project 9021
Your Donation Multiplied!
The cost to ship a container of Vitafood
varies by country due to customs fees, dock
fees, distance, etc. But no matter where it’s
shipped, a 40 ft. container of Vitafood goes a
long way to feed the hungry!
A typical Vitafood container holds enough
meals to feed 272,160 malnourished people
and is valued at $61,320. But because Vitafood
is generously donated, Cross Catholic Outreach
needs only to cover freight and shipping costs
to get these meals to the hungry children and
families who need them. That means every
dollar you donate for shipping Vitafood is
worth so much more!
Your gift of…
• $500 can ship 12,500 meals to hungry
children in Haiti!
• $1,500 can provide 37,500 meals.
• $11,000 can ship an entire container, or
more than a quarter million meals!
Think of it this way: a gift of just $1 will send 25 meals to Haiti, or as many as 31 meals to Nicaragua.
That’s less than the cost of a 20 oz. soda! What an exciting opportunity to make an impact in Christ’s name!
A 40 ft. shipping container can hold 272,160 meals of Vitafood.
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Vitafood
Project 9021
Help Now!
When we feel hungry, we don’t wait until tomorrow to fill our stomachs. We satisfy our craving
today. Why, then, would we wait to answer the pleas of the starving children at our doorstep, who
may not have eaten a morsel of food in days or even weeks?
Cross Catholic Outreach needs your support today to ship nutrient-rich Vitafood to Catholic
ministries in impoverished nations, so that orphans, vulnerable children, students and families can get
relief from their hunger. These compassionate ministries are preaching the Gospel in word and deed. They
are proclaiming Christ’s sacrifice while living out their own lives as a sacrifice for others. And now
they are asking for your help, so they can continue to show Christ’s love in action to the poor.
As Catholics, we have a special responsibility to meet the needs of the poor. The Bible says in Isaiah
58:10, “If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then
your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” The time to stand
against hunger is now! The food has been prepared and donated to us; all we need now are the funds
to ship it to hungry children and families in desperate need. Won’t you join us?
Proceeds from this campaign will be used to cover any expenditures for this project incurred during the
current calendar year. In the event that more funds are raised than needed to fully fund the project, the excess
funds, if any, will be used to meet the most urgent needs of the ministry.
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2700 N. Military Trail, Suite 240 • PO Box 273908 • Boca Raton, Florida 33427-3908 • 1-800-914-2420
© 2014 Cross Catholic Outreach. Cost effectively written, designed and printed in-house.