Dirt, salt and vegetable shortening are keeping families in Haiti from starving. Yes, you read correctly…DIRT. Due to increased food prices, Haitians are resorting to eating mud in the form of cookies. OMS Canada missionaries Dan and Gillian Shoemaker wrote on their blog that mud cookies are being eaten to “mask hunger pains.” See www.shoemakerhaiti.spaces.live.com for more information.

They write: “In recent months, the price of food has exceeded many families.” Gill said that the media announced that there is a shortage of food. “That’s not true,” Shoemaker said. “The problem is that the prices have increased a lot lately, so therefore, the little bit of money that they have does not go far.” She said the problem isn’t that there isn’t enough food in Haiti, but there’s not enough food in each person’s home.

“There’s enough food, just not enough money,” she said.

Neither the mud cookies nor the mass hunger problems are new to Haiti. This dire situation sometimes makes mud patties a necessary choice. According to an article from CBS News, pregnant women, as well as children, have used mud patties as an antacid and as a source of calcium. Although their soil does contain dietary minerals, mud can also contain parasites and toxins, which are harmful to the body.

Starfish Kids, a ministry of OMS International, serves 6,000 school children. (See www.starfishkids.org.) They have partnered with several organizations in a government program that will give Haitian schools rice, beans and oil so they can have hot meals daily. All they need to provide is secure storage facilities, which will cost $2,000 each.

“We have access to the food, the means of delivery, the cooking materials, the volunteer cooks and the hungry children, but we don’t have the storage rooms,” Shoemaker wrote on her blog.

You can help by sharing this need with others. For more information on how you can help, e-mail Gill at: fishing@starfishkids.org.

All financial gifts can be sent to:
OMS International
Attention: USA project # 407200
P.O. Box 1648
Monument, CO 80132-1648