SUPPORT FOOD KITS, COVID KITS AND SUPPLIES KITS FOR HOUSE CLEANING
Dear Friends,
First, we want to express our BIG GRACIAS for your ongoing love and solidarity.
This Holiday season, we share a letter and urgent appeal from Father Melo SJ and Sister Rosa Maria Trochez, SSND in Honduras in the face of two devastating hurricanes that have hit Honduras and the region in the last few days;
Their ongoing ministry of accompaniment, humanitarian aid, and a vision for a more just society as they “are undertaking a grand effort to save lives, first by evacuating families and communities at the highest risk and second by providing food rations to shelters “ is A CALL TO ACTION for our solidarity!
They “appeal to you for your prayers and solidarity…and invite you to accompany us as we journey with the people of God who seek to rise up and continue walking.”
Please read their message, hold them and the communities they are serving in your prayers, and consider making a tax-deductible donation to the SHARE Foundation – Hurricane ETA/IOTA Emergency Fund. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
PLEASE SHARE THIS CALL from Fr. Melo and Sister Rosa Maria and invite your friends to help. We are delivering kits for a family of five than include a food kit, a covid kit and house cleaning supplies kit; the total cost is $80.00 per family.
Together we can bind the wounds and sow the seeds of a just world.
Have a healthy Holiday season!
Jose Artiga
Executive Director
Letter from Fr. Melo SJ and hermana Rosa María Trochez SSND.
To Faith Communities in the United States and the World
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
We write from the shelters in Honduras with broken hearts in the face of so much suffering.
Hurricanes Eta and Iota together with Covid-19 have intersected to expose the inequality we are living.
Exactly 22 year ago, we suffered from Hurricane Mitch, which left so much death and destruction in its wake. In the intervening two decades we have not overcome the condition of poverty, rather it has only deepened.
Now, in the face of these disasters that are not as natural as they say, our people are fleeing North in caravans comprised of thousands of women and children. The government has completely abandoned these impoverished communities, and instead of doing its job and manifesting any semblance of concern for humanity, it is exploiting the situation and taking economic advantage for wealthy elites.
The impact is of a gigantic magnitude, with more than 3 million – one third of the population – affected and left in extreme poverty. The loss of crops and infrastructure is incalculable and will cause even greater harm to the poorest among us.
We have organized an Emergency Network of Solidarity with the broad participation of churches, religious women, pastors, community organizations and sectors from the private sector.
We are undertaking a grand effort to save lives, first by evacuating families and communities at the highest risk and second by providing food rations to shelters. We are also supplying water, hygiene products, masks to protect against Covid, rice, beans, masa for tortillas, salt, sugar, oil, medicine, mattresses, and sheets.
Going forward, we will initiate an organized return to their communities where many are likely to find nothing left, while others will begin cleaning the mud from their homes and recovering what they can from the harvest. We will then develop a transformational proposal that will include an Agricultural Program that includes the collective planting of a community “Milpa” – corn, beans, squash, fruit trees and other vegetables - and which generates thousands of jobs.
The future must include an alternative to the current model that has produced great wealth for the few and environmental destruction and poverty for the majority.
We appeal to you for your prayers and solidarity; we invite you to come to accompany us as we journey with the people of God who seek to rise up and continue walking. Your accompaniment strengthens us and helps us preserve our determination not only to survive in the face of so many crushing blows but to thrive as a beloved community.
We give thanks for each of you as you celebrate Thanksgiving, we pray for your wellbeing in the midst of Covid, and we recommit ourselves to the struggle for a dignified life for all.
Con nuestro cariño,
Fr Ismael "Melo" Coto, SJ, Radio Progreso and ERIC
Sister Rosa Maria Trochez, School Sister of Notre Dame