010730 USDA Awards $25 Million in Food Relief

Deerfield Beach, FL - The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced today that it has awarded Food For The Poor Inc. (FFP) contracts worth approximately $25 million in agricultural commodities for immediate distribution across Jamaica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Guyana. Funded under the Presidential Initiative Program 416(b), FFP will immediately distribute the food to children and the elderly, the most vulnerable members of society, in orphanages, hospitals, schools and elderly homes across the region. FFP is one of the largest providers of food aid to Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

The award provides a staggering 26,350 metric tons, or 58,091,737 lbs. of food, consisting of wheat, wheat flour, bulgur, corn-soy-milk, nonfat dry milk, rice, soybeans, corn and soybean oil. The USDA will ship the relief package from September through November 2001 to ports in each respective country. The food then will be distributed by FFP via its grassroots network of local churches and missionaries in each of the respective countries. According to Mary T. Chambliss, Deputy Administrator, Export Credits, USDA, “We at USDA are committed to partnerships with relief organizations, such as Food For The Poor, who can provide assistance to the most needy and vulnerable individuals in an effective manner.”

This award, the largest ever received by FFP, will be used to feed more than 500,000 people across the region for one year and supplement FFP's ongoing relief programs that have served the poorest of the poor since 1982.

“This gift from the American people through the USDA will enable us to significantly expand our efforts in reaching the poorest people in the countries we serve,” adds FFP President Robin Mahfood.

For almost 20 years, Food For The Poor has sent over $875 million in assistance to 26 Caribbean and Latin American countries, with over $190 million being shipped during the year 2000. FFP, the 5th largest international charity in the U.S., is an interdenominational Christian relief and development organization that has developed a highly efficient strategy for aiding the destitute of the Caribbean and Latin America. FFP provides emergency relief assistance, food, education, housing, health care, sustainable development, and micro-enterprise development assistance to hundreds of thousands of the poorest of the poor in the region. FFP generates 90% of the aid it delivers from the private sector and maintains a low overhead ratio of 9.3%.

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