World Food Programme Food Distributed

What do you do with 21,780 pounds of rice, 4400 pounds of beans, 720 1.5 litre bottles of oil, and 3630 pounds of coarse salt? With the purchase of some plastic grocery bags, the use of other miscellaneous plastic bags and recycled rice and bean bags from the HAFF school lunch program, you meet with the Community Relief Committee (CRC) and decide how much of each commodity each family will get. Then you measure and bag and divide big bags into smaller bags. It was finally decided that a family with one to three refugees would get one quarter of a 50 kilogram sack of rice and a bottle of oil. A family with 4 to 6 refugees would get a half sack and a bottle of oil. A family with 7 or more refugees would get a whole sack and two bottles of oil. The beans and salt were divided up evenly, according to calculations done by the CRC, and each family got a bag of beans and a bag of salt.
After many hours of Barb and Gabi and Kyle and Jonathan and the CRC members bagging salt and beans and rice, Wednesday March 3rd was the big distribution day. That afternoon HAFF's Mitsubishi Canter went south to a central location in Bohoc and then on to Grand Latanier. UCI's school bus went north to LaJeune and LaPila. The committee members had given the woman of each house a card and told her to come with someone to help her carry the provisions. As each name was called from the list, the people came forward, turned in their card and received their food.

One woman was overheard exclaiming about the size of the load as she struggled with her bag of rice. Some put their bags on donkeys and others on their heads while others needed a friend or family member to help them carry. There were many expressions of gratitude.

Friday, March 5th most of the rest of the food was distributed to Cercady, the Bohoc Market area and across the Bouyaha. And now the food depot is almost empty.


And what of the 385 pounds of soy fortified cornmeal? The committee decided that that should go to the 80 children in the HAFF milk program that Barb runs. That food began distribution Monday March 8th. Tuesday and Wednesday March 9 and 10, people received some Humanitarian Aid MRE's that HAFF received from World Food Programme through MAF and some bulgar, beans and oil HAFF received from World Vision. Thank the Lord with us for these wonderful blessings.