It wasn’t until I became a father that I realized how important food is to one’s emotional well-being. Growing up, three square meals a day were just always there for me, not much different than having clean water to drink. I just took food for granted. But when my daughter, Grace, was born and she got hungry, man, you had better get her some food fast. Her cries for food were so fierce that it made me think about how it would feel for those kids and parents who didn’t have food nearby.



In our work at International Samaritan, I meet people in that situation all the time. We walk hand in hand with people in garbage dump communities around the world to help them break out of poverty, and many have told me about the food they search for in garbage dumps.
That’s why I’m asking you to join me in a fast on Friday, March 8th—a Fast2Change in which you limit all of the food you eat that day to cost less than $2. Why? Because close to 1 in 10 people in the world live on less than $2 per day.
Our team here and abroad is going to take a day to experience a little bit of what that would feel like, and we are asking you and others around the world to join us in this fast. We are also asking you to donate what you spend on food in a typical day so that we can fund at least 30 scholarships for children and young adults living in garbage dump communities in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
Please click on the links below to learn about how you can join us in this fast, or perhaps even use your fast to sponsor a scholarship with your friends’ support.
What’s Missing in our Mission?
By Mike Tenbusch | February 12, 2021 Our international team and board discussing our mission over Zoom. Our team took this call from rooms in six different countries! Thank you, Tucker, for this photo. When you have a really good mission statement, I’ve learned...
A Life Lesson from Detroit
By Mike Tenbusch | January 29, 2021 Way back in 1973, I remember eating at Buddy’s pizza in Detroit with my brother, my dad, and my dad’s best friend, Fr. Frank Canfield, S.J. Because I was kind of a mischievous 4-year-old, I snuck a sip of my dad’s beer when he...
The Loss of a Precious Life
By Mike Tenbusch | January 15, 2021 We lost one of our scholars last week. Asdrubal Barroso was only 13-years-old. He was born in Cuba but moved with his parents to Nicaragua four years ago in search of better opportunities. They settled in a small home in Villa...