Sharing with grateful hearts

By Barbara Hagan CoL, Chair, Loretto Hunger Fund

Loretto’s Hunger Fund has helped feed the hungry for 50 years. The Stop Hunger Fund, as it was initially called, was established in 1974 in response to worldwide hunger, especially in India, where drought had led to famine and starvation. Loretto Community members were indefatigable in raising money. They babysat, collected aluminum cans, sold paintings and more. Loretto schools collected donations and held bake sales and raffles. (Today, students at St. Mary’s Academy in Denver raise money for the Hunger Fund.) The effort does not let up, offering assistance to groups that provide groceries, stock pantries, serve meals or otherwise feed the hungry. In recent years, donations have helped feed people in the U.S., Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan and Uganda, among other locations.

The Loretto Hunger Fund grants funding to various groups that reach into the community to feed those who are less fortunate. These agencies serve those who are homeless, low-income people, immigrants, soup kitchens and others. So many people do amazing work to help those in need of food.

At the 1974 Loretto Assembly a proposal was passed and a goal established to raise $180,000 to start the Stop Hunger Fund. Helen Sanders SL, president of Loretto at the time, wrote, “Through much discussion and prayer and in response to many pleas for a simpler lifestyle and a willingness to sacrifice and share, the assembly voted to propose to the entire Loretto Community an ongoing program with a goal of supplying a sum of $180,000 to help alleviate conditions in underdeveloped countries which are causing starvation to millions of human beings” (Interchange, Sept. 1974). Francis Jane O’Toole SL of Louisville, Ky., took on this challenge by committing to raise $90,000 to match the $90,000 given from the general fund of the Sisters of Loretto.

Each issue of Interchange (the Loretto Community newsletter) would give an update on the amount raised that month. By December 1975, $60,000 of the $90,000 had been raised. Money was brought in through personal donations, bake sales, raffles, school mission days, etc. Cecily Jones SL helped to raise awareness at St. Pius School in St. Louis with the help of Eileen Kersgieter SL during the school’s mission day to raise $1,500. Susan Swain SL raised funds at the Lower School of Loretto in Kansas City using UNICEF boxes (UNICEF gave approval for the money to go to the Stop Hunger Fund). Individual sisters were asked to make donations from their personal budgets.

By 1976 the goal of $90,000 was achieved! Loretto provided $180,000 to address hunger, an enormous sum at the time.

The name was eventually changed to the Hunger Fund, and Cecily was one of its leading members. The Hunger Fund meets annually to disperse available funds.

As we continue this important mission into the future, please remember the Hunger Fund with your kindness by making a donation to this great cause. It is a wonderful way to share our blessings.

Community members made and still make sacrifices for the Hunger Fund. We try to give more than the scraps from our table. This is a great and lasting grace that we received almost 50 years ago.

Mary Ann McGivern SL

Hunger in the U.S.

In 2022, 44.2 million people lived in households that struggled to provide adequate food for their members (a significant increase from 33.8 million in 2021). Those households included more than 13 million children, an increase of about 45 percent from 2021.

During the same year, an average food-insecure household spent 15% less on food than the typical foodsecure household of the same size and composition.

– Report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Oct. 2023, “Food Security in the United States in 2022.”

Bread for Life Community Food Pantry, located near the Loretto Motherhouse in Bardstown, Ky., works with the St. Vincent de Paul Society, St. Joseph Parish and other ministry programs to house the homeless and feed the hungry, serving hundreds of families each month.

Bread for Life has purchased and refurbished a food truck to make its pantry mobile; it features appliances that can be used as refrigerators or freezers, depending on need.

The Loretto Hunger Fund has gratefully supported this ministry.

The Hunger Fund’s aim is to fulfill the Laudato Si’ goal of promoting eco-justice by a response to the cry of the poor, and to fulfill our mission #33 from I Am the Way (Loretto’s Constitutions): ‘We commit ourselves to improving the conditions of those who suffer from injustice, oppression and deprivation of dignity.’

Pat Frueh SL

To read all the articles in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Loretto Magazine, click here.