A tradition marking 50 years continues to touch people’s lives

Now in its 50th year, CRS Rice Bowl continues its Lenten tradition of raising funds to support people experiencing hunger around the world and in the United States. (Submitted photo)

By John Shaughnessy

Marilyn Ross marvels at this tradition—especially the way it started among a small group of everyday people and how it has become an annual effort in the United States to fight one of the world’s greatest problems.

“First of all, it shows how the Lord works,” Ross says. “He doesn’t need to start or even end with big things. He uses us where we are.”

She then shares a story that began 50 years ago—when a group of Catholics in Allentown, Pa., were watching televised scenes that touched their hearts and left them wanting to do something for the people they saw on the screen.

“That was back in the day when people gathered around the television at night,” Ross recalls. “They saw these films from Africa showing the hunger people were living in at the time. That was their incentive to help these people halfway around the world.”

That moment led to the creation of small, cardboard boxes to save money to help people devastated by hunger—an effort that was the beginning of “CRS Rice Bowl.” Now, in its 50th year, this Lenten initiative of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has raised $350 million to support people facing hunger around the world and here in the United States. (Related: CRS Rice Bowl Lenten Plan and Pledge | Lenten Calendar)

“There’s a global and a local aspect to Rice Bowl,” says Ross, who coordinates the effort in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. “Seventy-five percent of what is raised goes overseas with CRS for their work, and 25 percent can be retained in the local diocese for local hunger relief and humanitarian efforts. That’s what we do here. With the 25 percent, we make grants to local humanitarian organizations. In the past few years, they’ve all been related to fighting hunger.”

Grants have been made to soup kitchens, food pantries and different conferences of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul across the archdiocese, including at St. Joseph University Parish in Terre Haute, SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral Parish in Indianapolis, and at Ross’ parish, Our Lady of the Greenwood in Greenwood.

“I think of little children and big children who can get really excited about this,” Ross says. “In my own parish, I stand around on the Sunday before

Ash Wednesday and on Ash Wednesday after all of our services, distributing Rice Bowls. And to see the excitement of some of these children—and adults, too. They want their Rice Bowls. They’re excited to get them because they know it makes a difference.

“When our parish has gotten a grant in the past few years for our food pantry, they publicize it in our bulletin, so people can see the direct connection—we’re helping people abroad who need it and we’re helping people here.”

Ross notes how Catholic Relief Services not only works to alleviate hunger around the world but how it provides immediate emergency responses to people in countries devastated by hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. CRS also provides educational and agricultural resources to help people create sustainable ways of feeding their families.

“Of course, we want to raise more funds to help CRS continue their work,” Ross says. “It’s also about raising people’s awareness of what’s going on around the world. We get so caught up in the politics of what’s going on that we forget about the people, the individual person, which our Church is very much about. It’s not just as a group, it’s who we are as individuals and our relationship with the Lord.”

Beyond the use of Rice Bowls, CRS provides online resources to help people form a deeper spiritual connection with Christ and others during Lent. At crsricebowl.org, Lenten prayers, devotions, recipes and short videos are available in both English and Spanish. So are lesson plans for parents, educators and catechists to help students in grades 1 to 12 grow in that spiritual connection.

They’re all parts of a Lenten tradition that began humbly 50 years ago, a tradition that only requires giving from the heart.

“I have Rice Bowls, but people don’t need them,” Ross says. “They can use a jar. It can be a family thing. That’s one of the things we really like to see happen.”

The tradition is also founded on a belief that is timeless.

“It shows how God can use us as individuals,” Ross says. “He wants us as individuals to reach out to others.”
 

(For more information or to receive Rice Bowls, contact Marilyn Ross at mross@archindy.org or call her at 317-236-7326.) †