Rice bowl app campaigns for Lent, fight hunger

After four decades of fighting hunger and engaging Catholics during Lenten season, the Catholic Relief Services has now made a new platform for their Rice Bowl Campaign.

In a report posted in cbcpnews website, Eric Clayton, rice bowl program officer with Catholic Relief Services said they have launched a mobile application or app to challenge netizens to help Catholics observe Lent and to boost participation in efforts to fight hunger, as this will “give people a new way to experience Lent in a more immediate sense and in a more interactive sense.”

The participants can use the mobile app to track and enhance their Lenten commitment to prayer, fasting and charitable giving, and also allow longtime rice bowl participants to “go deeper.”

Launched last February 5, the app allows users to track the alms they deposit in their rice bowls and donate the money to CRS at any time. The app also features prayerful reflection for each day of Lent and meatless recipes for Fridays.

It was also reported via Catholic News Agency website that CRS also created a Lenten Photo Challenge to allow the public to share how they participate in the rice bowl program by asking them to post rice bowl-related photos like prayer, fasting or charity on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using the hashtag “#VivaLent.”

Clayton said 75% of the proceeds will be used for the worldwide operations of CRS while 25% will be used to support hunger and poverty relief efforts within the contributor’s local diocese.  (John Frances C. Fuentes/@dcherald)