Your support builds futures. Partner with Food For The Poor today and help create sustainable solutions for families in need.

We’ve all heard the saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” In the fight against poverty, true change comes when communities are empowered to chart their own course—gaining the skills and tools to break cycles of need. It’s not about quick fixes or handouts; it’s about creating opportunities that transform lives for the long term.

Too often, poverty alleviation efforts stop short of addressing the underlying issues that keep people in need, while the programs that focus on collaboration, education, and local leadership foster lasting change. Why? Because poverty isn’t only economic but often involves broken worldviews and diminished self-worth. By working with leaders to help community members recognize that dignity is inviolable and inherent to their creation in God’s image, a much healthier perception of self can be built.

Education that Equips

In the mountains of Colombia, Yohan and his two young sisters walk miles each morning, trudging up rocky trails to reach their school, Formemos. But Formemos isn’t just any school. In addition to traditional academics, students receive vocational training, learning skills like farming, animal husbandry, and high-quality food production. What sets the school apart, however, is its focus on entrepreneurship. From crafting business plans to analyzing markets, students discover how to build, grow, and sustain enterprises that not only support their families but also create employment opportunities within their communities.

Colombia’s local context underscores the importance of this project. With 36 percent of the population living in poverty and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic still reverberating, food insecurity is rampant. Compounded by the presence of 2.8 million Venezuelan migrants, Colombia faces immense challenges.

Formemos’ vocational program meets these challenges head-on, empowering students to create businesses that benefit their communities. Yohan and his peers produce nutrient-rich food bars made from coffee skins—a waste product from local agriculture. These bars are packaged with care and adorned with red hearts and a colorful label reading “Watch your health,” and they are sold to local markets.

“I’m learning accounting and how to start a small business,” Yohan says. He explains that his community has limited resources, and Formemos’s entrepreneurial model, which provides training in customer relations, sales tracking, and financial management, is helping in profound ways. 

And Formemos is just one example of the power of locally driven solutions. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, numerous community-based projects reflect this same model. In El Salvador, Food For The Poor has partnered with Acceso to help train small-scale farmers in sustainable agriculture and connect them to larger markets. These efforts don’t just lift individual families out of poverty—they strengthen entire local economies, allowing communities to become more self-sufficient and resilient in the face of challenges like climate change and market volatility.

The ripple effects of these grassroots solutions are profound. By fostering entrepreneurship, vocational skills, and sustainable farming practices, projects like Formemos and Acceso are giving families the tools they need to stay rooted in their communities rather than migrating in search of work. This stability creates stronger, more cohesive societies, where individuals can contribute meaningfully to their local economies and pass down these skills to future generations.

Building Toward Sustainable Solutions

Implementing a grassroots, locally informed approach to poverty alleviation isn’t always easy. It requires humility, patience, and a willingness to listen to the needs of local communities. But for Food For The Poor, this approach is the key to long-term success. Through its asset-based community development approach, Food For The Poor builds upon existing community strengths—skills, knowledge, and local resources—rather than imposing external solutions. This promotes community empowerment, enabling leaders to address immediate needs while establishing a foundation for long-term development.

For more than 40 years, Food For The Poor has seen firsthand that the most effective solutions arise when local leaders are empowered. In one community, the solution may be a business that produces nutrition bars; in another, it might be providing sanitary bathrooms to keep girls in school. Elsewhere, a community may need farming equipment, not just food deliveries, to sustainably grow and sell their own crops.

As they continue to foster innovation and support sustainable development, Food For The Poor invites you to be part of their transformative work. Through the generosity of donors and volunteers, Food For The Poor has expanded its reach from providing critical relief to empowering local communities through long-term projects like Formemos. The organization’s success is measured not just in immediate relief but in lasting change—tracking everything from household income and food security to community empowerment and personal resilience. 

On Giving Tuesday, your support can help sustain these life-changing initiatives, ensuring that even more communities benefit from this grassroots approach. Together, we can create lasting change, impacting lives for generations to come.