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Canadian Foodgrains Bank"No, O people, the Lord has already told you what is good, and this is what he requires: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6:8 For 25 years, a group of volunteers has been putting on an auction sale to raise money for the MCC account at Canadian Foodgrains Bank. This was the third year my wife and I had the privilege of attending this event. If there ever was a group of people that lives out the above verse, it is this group. Since this sale started, it has raised over $1 million to help reduce hunger around the world. Canadian Foodgrains Bank is a Christian-based food aid and development organization. It is owned by 13 Canadian church agencies, one of which is Mennonite Central Committee Canada. Donations come to Foodgrains MCC account as cash from congregations and individuals or as grain from individual farmers and community growing projects. Last year, Saskatchewan farmers donated 5,782 tonnes of grain in total. The sale was held at the Watler Wiebe farm on July 2, 2005. A fundraising event for the sale, a vereneki and sausage supper, was held in March, raising over $8,000. This year, the weather was a little more favourable and the attendance was up. Cattle donated are always a large part of the sale and this year saw prices a little stronger than the previous year. Total sales and food booth sales, along with cash donations, brought in just over $80,000. Even without the matching funds received from CIDA, this auction will feed over 2,500 people for six months. The proceeds of this event give MCC access to another $320,000 from CIDA. From April 1 to June 30, 2005, Canadian Foodgrains Band members have sent out $7.6 million in food aid to Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, North Korea, Bangladesh, India, Mali, Kenya, Sudan and Sri Lanka, just to name a few. In January 2005, MCC, through CFGB, supplied 2,900 metric tonnes of split peas to feed two million displaced people in the Darfur region of Sudan. The cost of this project was $3,542,218. Just over $708,000 of this came from MCC account at CFGB, with the balance coming from CIDA. This is just one of many projects that MCC and Foodgrains have done together. I'm available to come to your church and bring you up to date on what MCC is doing through Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
Dave Meier, Saskatchewan Coordinator
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© 2003 Mennonite Central Committee
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