LatinaLista — It wasn’t that long ago that Honduras dominated world headlines due to the country’s political turmoil, and remains in the spotlight because of the increase in violence and murders of journalists.
Yet there is another story in Honduras that, unfortunately, has never attracted the kind of global outcry as has the country’s internal political affairs. It’s a story about the 1,000+ men, women and children who live and/or scavenge at a huge dump outside Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
The people who live at this dump (accompanying video can be found at the Latina Lista Network on www.latinalista.net) are the poorest of the poor. In addition to finding any scrap they can resell, they also fight the buzzards in getting the last crumbs of any food that is found.
While there are several ministries trying to serve this population, the main need for all of these people is food. So last year, Texas Church of Christ minister, Trey Morgan, created a campaign called “Feed the Dump People Day.”
Using the anniversary date he had been cancer free for seven years, Morgan designated May 5 as the day to fundraise $2500 to buy food for the people at the dump.
In November of 2008 I got a newsletter from a group of kids who were doing some mission work down in Honduras. They mentioned in their newsletter about going out to the dump and feeding people who lived there.
When I first read it I thought to myself, “No way is there really people who live at a dump and eat out of the trash.” I emailed them and found out more about their work. They were making and taking sandwiches to them when the funds to do so were available. About six months later we decided to have a fund raiser for them on this blog. My dream was to raise about $2500 for this work. I dreamed much too small.
Morgan ended up raising $12,500 for the Dump Fund.
This year, Morgan wants to raise even more — but not just money — awareness too.
He has launched the second Feed the Dump People Day campaign which will culminate on May 5, 2010 but he also wants to understand how it feels to go hungry. To accomplish that, he has created the 30-hour Dump Day Fast challenge.
This year I’m challenging you to a Dump Day fast. A 30 hour fast that will coincide with the Dump Day marathon. It will be a reminder to us that there are hungry people in this world, and they can’t be overlooked. I’m not sure there’s ever been a day in the Tegucigalpa dump when the people have actually had more to eat than me … but on May 5th they will.
On May 5, Morgan’s counterpart in Honduras will be handing out rice, beans, tortillas and bananas to the people at the dump. It’s a Wednesday and it’s the day of the week the people know they won’t have to eat leftovers.
Every Wednesday is the day that proceeds from the campaign are used to buy food to distribute to the children, women and men whose usual worry is not “what will I eat today?” but rather “Will I eat anything today?”
Complete information on how to donate to the Feed the Dump People Day campaign can be found at Morgan’s site.
Comment(1)
Dennis Raether
Our Mission Group just got back from Tegucigalpa and we were at the dump and fed the people living there with the help and kindness of the Derimasa Church who cooked the food, it was very sad to see that people live like that. I applaud all the ones who help. God Bless.
Dennis