NEW YORK, New York. – The Riverside Church’s Sharing Fund Committee awarded a grant of $5,000 to help support the Batey Relief Alliance’s life-saving malnutrition prevention program inside the bateyes of the Dominican Republic.

The three-year program, supported by the Vitamin Angel Alliance, targets 55,000 children to receive daily multivitamins and twice-a-year antiparasitic medicines. The USAID contributed 75 metric tons of dehydrated food products to 5,100 at-risk people severely affected by poverty, disease and hunger, including HIV/AIDS and TB sufferers, orphaned/vulnerable children, pregnant women and the elderly. The Presbyterian Church-USA Hunger Program and the Disciples of Christ’s Week of Compassion contributed funds to purchase locally food products such as rice, beans, meat, vegetable and oil.

People living in the bateyes have limited access to adequate housing, water/sanitation, medical care, electricity, and education. Food security is considered one of the most challenges for the population.

Please help feed these hungry kids in the bateyes. Make a tax-deductible gift payable to Batey Relief Alliance, P.O. Box 300565, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11230.

Contact Ulrick Gaillard at bra@bateyrelief.org or (917) 627-5026.