Projects
MercyPets has SIX active projects at the moment. It has begun to make a REAL DIFFERENCE in the lives of children affected by hunger. MercyPets makes annual grant donations to partnering institutions that provide nutritional support to children.
Families Forward Project, Dayton. The first project is in partnership with the Families Forward Initiative at Kiser Elementary School in Dayton, OH. The initiative works with the Family Engagement Events which are held quarterly. These events provide families with an opportunity for a shared meal at the school, prepared by the project partners at the House of Bread, and a fun and educational topic to share with families. At the end of the evening, families who register are provided a take home bag of groceries to recreate the health family meal at home. At each event, all students also receive at least one book to take home to promote family literacy and reading at home. With 41% of Kiser families identified as coming from refugee or immigrant families, the family style meal has been particularly key to engaging the diverse Kiser Community. With an average of 80 attendees each event, the success of the family meals shows that if given an opportunity, families will engage in their children’s learning.
Sor Lucia Rohè Recovery Center, Gautamala. The second project is at the
Sor Lucia Rohè Recovery Center, Guatemala City, Guatemala, through Food For The Poor Inc.
This will benefit approximately 160 children who are in recovery at Center. The Sor Lucia
Rohè Recovery Center is a temporary home for children in need of physical and
psychological recovery as well as injury and diseases as a result of abuse and/or
negligence. Many families of the children are poor and do not have the means to purchase
food or provide safe shelter. The center provides healthy and balanced meals to the children.
The mission of the staff is to restore them to physical and mental health, so they can return to
their homes and live healthy lives.
City Soleil, Haiti. On its second anniversary on December 2019, MercyPets
expanded to City Soleil, Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western
Hemisphere. Apart from the political unrest and deep-rooted corruption, Haiti
is vulnerable to devastating storms and hurricanes. More recently, two earthquakes
in 2010 killed approximately 316,000 people. Since then, there have been two
major hurricanes in 2016 and 2018 which killed scores of people and displaced
many more. MercyPets is patterning with Sr. Marie Päesie to feed the children
in the poorest slums in City Soleil. Sr. Päesie works to provide education,
nourishment and religion classes to these children and give them hope of a
future. Mercypets will provide food assistance to these children, who without
our help, would be hungry and starve. We literally are saving lives here!
In August 2020, Mercy inaugurated its latest project in Dayton. In partnership with
Catholic Social Services of the Miami Valley, MercyPets will provide baby food and
baby formula to mothers who are unable to breast feed and cannot afford baby
food for their newborn. This latest MercyPets project serves the most vulnerable lives
in the city of Dayton in Ohio.
MercyPets want to thank all of you who have supported MercyPets in any way! Together we are making and can make a difference in the world through our pets!!! Please make your donations at www.mercypets.org
Matagalpa Nutritional Center, Nicaragua. Just a year after its founding, MercyPets has adopted a third institution to provide nutritional support to children - The Matagalpa Nutritional Center in Nicaragua. There are approximately 30 children there at any given time. MercyPets will help provide milk and perishable food items to the children. Jobs in this community is unable and people are underpaid. Most of the adults work in coffee plantations, which provide only seasonal employment. This makes parents put their children to work to supplement the income. Even this does not allow the parents to provide adequately for their children and it leads to sever malnutrition. It leads to diseases and deters physical and mental development. MercyPets will supplement the nutritional needs of these children.
The Saving Families From Hunger project in Villavicencio, Columbia seeks to provide nutritional support to mothers and children by delivering a monthly food package that complements their daily diet. The project in Columbia is the sixth project and begun on the 5th anniversary of MercyPets. This project will benefit approximately 200 people with nutritional packages designed for the needs of children and pregnant women. It is a holistic project that targets children and their families so that children are not merely provided nutrition but mothers and families are trained to continue appropriate nutritional practices.