By skipping one meal, thousands of Seventh-day Adventist church members fed 65,000 of the poorest people in Colombia last month.

Sound complicated? It was quite a simple idea, organizers say—as simple as getting church members to donate their dinner for one day to feed the less fortunate.

Gabriel Villarreal, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) Colombia director, who coordinated the event, says he got the idea for this project after reading a national study reporting that almost half of the population of Colombia is poor. He says the project went hand-in-hand with World Hunger Day, which was Oct. 16.

“The plan had as its main objective to alleviate the hunger needs for at least one meal of those affected by violence, victims of natural disasters, single mothers, school-age children, homeless people and the marginal areas throughout cities in Colombia,” says Villarreal.

ADRA requested the Seventh-day Adventist Church, with 1,000 churches in the country, to promote its plan to church members.

“Adventist congregations in each city, district, community and neighborhood throughout our country got involved,” says Villarreal. “It was a project that we presented to the [local] churches to develop, and in turn church leaders enlisted volunteers and motivated church members to donate a meal to someone less fortunate.”

Every church leader involved also went before the mayor’s office and/or organized community leaders to share the intended project and to enlist their assistance on providing the names of needy families and individuals in the community. The project was well received by community leaders. Most donated funds for additional meals and got closely involved in the logistics of delivering the boxed dinners, according to Villarreal.

Villarreal says that ADRA Colombia was very particular about making sure that community leaders provided meal tickets to the families and individuals with the greatest needs throughout the country.

“We literally visited every home in every community where there was an Adventist presence, seeing the existing needs of every home and handing out meal tickets announcing the distribution of meals for the next Sabbath at 3 p.m.,” says Villarreal.

Once meal tickets were distributed, ADRA volunteers, the volunteer group Dorcas Society, Adventist young people and other church members all throughout Colombia were organized to prepare and assemble boxed meals, which included a sandwich, fruit, cookies and juice.

Villarreal says he had originally hoped to feed 50,000 people, but because local church promotions of the event went better than expected, the number turned out to be 65,000.

“The permanent objective we obtained from this project was that we motivated the people to be kind and compassionate to their fellow men,” says Villarreal. “We are sure that ... in the future more acts of kindness and compassion will be done,” says Villarreal.

The event brought help not only from ADRA, Adventist church members and church-owned institutions, but also from others in the community. For example, the mayor’s office in Chaparral donated funds for 400 boxed meals, and some private companies donated funds for 1,000 meals. The event was covered on television, radio and in newspapers.

“It has ignited the Dorcas Society volunteers and young people throughout our churches to do something like this every month, as a local initiative,” says Villarreal. “This is the result we wanted to get within the church.”

Community leaders asked ADRA and the Adventist church for continued efforts like these in their community. However, Villarreal encouraged community leaders to use their own resources to create this type of program to help the people with the greatest need in their community.

Not only is this the first time that this program has been done on a large scale in Colombia, but in Inter-America as well, says Wally Amundson, ADRA director for Inter-America.

“I think that’s a real gift to the community when you can show them that with just a few resources that they have with their own hands that they can do something to make a difference,” says Amundson. “They don’t have to wait for a grant from the United Nations in order to do something meaningful.”

For more information on ADRA Inter-America projects see www.interamerica.org.