CRS Rice Bowl Program Has a Global Impact

This week, Grotto catches up with Annie Maguire, a student ambassador for Catholic Relief Services. She shares how the CRS Rice Bowl program aims to alleviate global poverty by donating funds to humanitarian programs.

Video Transcript

Annie Maguire: My name is Annie Maguire. The Rice Bowl program is a Lenten program through the CRS — the Catholic Relief Services — and this program aims to alleviate global poverty through donating funds to humanitarian and development programs that are internationally working to help small farmers and other people on the margins of society.

As a way of almsgiving, volunteers collect donations in boxes called “rice bowls.”

The Rice Bowl is connected to legislative advocacy. We have worked with the CRS to actually and tangibly change laws that affect people’s livelihoods worldwide.

With the Rice Bowl program, in particular, I am leading a group of students who are distributing Rice Bowls, collecting Rice Bowls, and really educating our student body on these issues. I think that it’s important for us to find ways to live out our faith. And for me, I’ve found a home in social justice issues, and this is an outlet that I can actually see the work that needs to be done, but also the change that can be made.

So I think it’s allowed me to grow in my faith, but also think more critically about the world around me and the issues that I see.

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