As I sat down at the computer to write my column, I wasnt sure of a topic. So before writing, I looked for stimulation in the news of the day, and then went to my email. I discovered Craig Severtson had sent me a note with pictures from Chad.
Craig, from Flandreau, is the founder of Helping Kids Round First. His work with HKRF began in Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the hemisphere, after Haiti. The purpose of HKRF initially centered in baseball equipment. Craig rounded up assistance for the purchase of balls and bats and gloves, for future baseball players. What started as a baseball program soon engendered community trust, then expanded into agriculture, water, education and healthcare; the building blocks of a more sustainable economy.
Nicaragua has not been forgotten, but Craig has taken on a new challenge in Chad hunger! Teaming up with Orphan Grain Train, he is in Chad delivering aid to refugees. Chad has 1.8 million forcibly displaced refugees. The pictures he sent me suggested some of the challenges they face, including an enormous truck, piled high with food sacks, stuck in a pothole in a makeshift road. Delivery problems, along with unstable governments and the militarization of the area, can make aid efforts difficult.
Some of the aid on that truck originated here. In April of this year, volunteers with HKRF raised $25,000 and helped pack 100,000 food packets at St. Thomas More Parish in Brookings. The packets are nutritionally complete, healthier and easier to distribute and use than the traditional beans and rice. The pictures I received from Craig show their storage in a warehouse and distribution to those in need. Even with poor roads and other difficulties, people are being fed.
I write about this for three reasons. First, it demonstrates what one person can do with motivation and good will. Second, it reveals a continuing mission of the Christian community to serve the poor, as Orphan Grain Train is a Christian organization, and Craig relies on people of faith to support his efforts.
Third, these individual and church efforts are a judgment on our government, hell bent on discontinuing any foreign aid. For the fiscal year starting in October, the White House is cutting humanitarian aid from $10 billion to $4 billion, and doing away with the Food for Peace Program. That program purchases commodities from American farmers to feed the hungry overseas (another economic setback for agricultural communities around the country).
The U.S. has long supported a rather robust pipeline, that sent some $1 billion in commodities and nutritional supplements to global crisis zones. That pipeline is broken, increasingly sabotaged. Millions of dollars of goods sit in warehouses wearing DESTROY stickers, as they are past their expiration date and no longer useful.
Much of the broken pipeline is attributed to the Trump administrations dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. All of its employees were laid off except for a tiny fraction and 80% of its programming cut. Its doors officially closed on July 1 and any further responsibility for the work resides with the Office of the Secretary of State. As of early August, more than 60 metric tonnes of food aid sat in warehouses around the country, rotting, as court cases about Presidential versus Congressional authority, and workers rights, circulated without resolve. In those cases where there was resolution, it ended up in the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Presidential authority.
It is estimated that the food aid could help 60 million people. It is bought and paid for, with our tax dollars. It simply hasnt been shipped. This is a giant glut, according to one official.
The path of this administration is clear. We will invest more resources in the Defense Department (excuse me, the War Department) and in new ventures like a Golden Shield (everything is golden for our President, even toilets) and we will divest from Food for Peace and any other peace building initiatives that serve the needy.
We will all need to step up, as people of faith and compassion, to do the necessary; until we can once again count on a government that serves, rather than demonizes and exploits the poor.
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