I am asking my blog followers, friends, fellow Buddhist and fellow bloggers on my blog roll, to join BGR and me in raising funds and awareness on the serious issues of hunger, worldwide. I am blessed with the most wonderful friends, new and old, all across this world, lets come together and work in harmony and solidarity to make an huge impact on world hunger. If not you, then who? We can do it!
Amituofo
With Metta,
Melissa Schaid / Changhui Upasika
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.” -Mother Theresa
What we do
We combat hunger
For close to a billion people around the world, hunger is a real, terrible, and ever-present fate that hounds their every step. According to the World Food Program, each year ten million people, many of them children, die of hunger and hunger-related diseases. Each day over a hundred million people wonder where their next meal will come from. Because it is so commonplace, chronic hunger seldom makes the headlines, seldom whips up massive waves of public sympathy. Its victims suffer in silence, almost forgotten by those with assured livelihoods and comfortably filled stomachs.
The Buddha, however, clearly recognized the frightful toll that hunger takes on human life. In the Dhammapada, he said “Hunger is the worst illness.” When people go hungry each day, for months and years on end, every aspect of their life is degraded. The body loses mass and withers away; the pangs of hunger remain constant; one thinks only about food, dreams only about food. And the ultimate prognosis for chronic hunger is grim: debilitating illness, perhaps an early death.
It is in response to the cries of those afflicted with chronic hunger that Buddhist Global Relief came into being, and it is to redress this condition that its programs are formulated. Our primary purpose is to combat hunger. We address our efforts both to assist victims of sudden disaster who need emergency food aid, and to enable those crippled by chronic food shortages to develop stable, long-term strategies of improved food security. Our endeavor is to ensure that the world’s poorest people are provided with adequate nutrition, and provided with it long into the future. Our hope is that, when their nutritional needs are met, they will be able to unfold and actualize their fullest potential for goodness and meaning in their lives.
“In giving food, one gives five things to the recipients: one gives life, beauty, happiness, strength, and mental clarity. In giving these five things, one in turn partakes of life, beauty, happiness, strength, and mental clarity, whether in this world or in the heavenly realm.”
– Anguttara Nikaya 5:37
Our programs
- BGR fights hunger and poverty in the developing world. BGR raises funds for food relief from both private donors and philanthropic organizations. We provide grants to relief organizations, primarily local ones, working in third world communities to provide emergency food relief and to meet the need for clean water, education, and supporting infrastructure.
- BGR seeks to develop local capacity. BGR works in partnership with agencies, temples, and relief organizations already operating on the ground to provide the needed relief to victims of natural disaster, violent conflict, and drought. It also supports projects aimed at developing better long-term methods of food production and management in countries stricken by poverty and under-development. In each instance, our goal is to enable local communities to develop long-term sustainable solutions to the problem of hunger.
- BGR does not proselytize. Our guiding purpose is to provide aid, not to convert others to Buddhism. Although our initial projects are being launched in countries with largely Buddhist populations, we do not restrict our aid to Buddhists or expect those who receive aid from us to embrace Buddhism. BGR respects the religious beliefs and practices of the people whom it serves and seeks to work in harmony with those of all faiths to alleviate the plight of the poor.
- BGR seeks to educate and involve fellow Buddhists and other Buddhist groups in the effort to eliminate hunger. BGR seeks to make the elimination of hunger an integral part of our contemporary Buddhist identity. We bring Buddhist perspectives to bear on many dimensions of global poverty through teaching and publishing materials from our Buddhist tradition that are responsive to the unique challenges of the 21st century.
Where we work
As a newly established organization with limited means, we are focusing initially upon countries in Asia with predominantly Buddhist populations. However, we fully understand that hunger knows no religion, nor does the universal ethic of the Buddha’s teaching permit us to limit our help to any one group of people. As our resources and abilities grow, we will expand our work to include other people in other lands who suffer due to malnourishment and starvation.
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Registration administered throughFirstGiving website
For further information, visit ourWalks and FAQ pages |
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“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” -Mother Teresa
Small ways you can help, that make a big difference:
1.) Walk with us at our many locations. http://www.firstgiving.com/BuddhistGlobalRelief
2.) Create your own walk with your Sangha, Church, Club, Community and please let me know you are creating a walk, We’d like to promote and share your posts and walks on our social media also.Contact me at NYCsocialmedia@buddhistglobalrelief.org
3.) Donate directly to Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi’s FirstGiving Page http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/bhikkhubodhi/new-york
4.) Walk in solidarity with us all, in a virtual walk which you can create online through FIrstGiving http://www.firstgiving.com/BuddhistGlobalRelief
5.) Join, post and repost BGR’s various social media formats and content.
An Invitation from Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi http://files.meetup.com/10146472/2013%20Walk%20Appeal%20Message-Open-rev.-2%20%281%29.pdf
BGR 2013 Walk to Feed the Hungry flier for your use at your event https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10202048194472137&set=gm.662092343803629&type=1&theater
Buddhist Global Relief website http://www.buddhistglobalrelief.org/index.html
Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi’s personal BGR blog http://buddhistglobalrelief.wordpress.com/
BGR Facebook Fan Page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Buddhist-Global-Relief/140908022597845
BGR Twitter https://twitter.com/BuddhistGblRlf
BGR Compassionate Action Community NYC Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/BGR.NYC.CompassionateActionCommunity/
BGR Compassionate Action Community NYC Twitter https://twitter.com/BGR_CAC_NYC
BGR Compassionate Action Community NYC MeetUp http://www.meetup.com/BGR-Compassionate-Action-Community-NYC/
BGR on YOUTUBE http://www.youtube.com/user/BGRelief#p/a
6.) Become a BGR volunteer: please contact Deena Scherer deenascherer@verizon.net
7.) Simply share this entire blog post.
“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done.We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.” -Mother Teresa
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