When Thomas Awiapo visits Catholic parishes and schools across the United States, his message moves people. One teacher at a school he was visiting in Wisconsin brought him a birthday cake, and it wasn't even his birthday. Thomas doesn't know when his birthday is. 
Thomas Awiapo poses with his family
outside his home in northeastern Ghana.
Thomas' story alone is compelling enough. Born the second of four sons to a desperately poor family in rural northeastern Ghana, Thomas found himself orphaned and all but abandoned by the age of ten (though he isn't sure how old he was). His two younger brothers died of malnutrition, the youngest in his arms. His older brother ran off, never to be seen again.
Thomas was left to scrounge for food, doing odd jobs when he could and living alone in his family's mud hut, so hungry some nights that he couldn't sleep. Then, one day, he smelled lunch cooking at a CRS-supported school in his poor farming village of Wiago.
"I come from a family that knows nothing about education," says Thomas. "I started to go to school simply to have lunch," which Thomas says usually consisted of a wheat-soy blend mixed with oil. "At first, if I didn't see the smoke rising from the cooking pot, I stayed away."
Lunch lured Thomas, reluctantly at first, into school. But it was the dedication of the teachers and local Catholic priests that kept him coming back.
Lunch lured Thomas, reluctantly at first, into school. But it was the dedication of the teachers and local Catholic priests that kept him coming back.
"They treated us like we were their own children," Thomas remembers of his teachers. "They helped me to like school so that I was never late, never wanted to miss a day. And if I didn't go to school one day, they tried to find out what was wrong. Teaching for them was more than a job. It was a vocation, a calling."
Now Thomas has a master's degree from California State University, a wife and three children, plus a career with CRS Ghana teaching communities the value of good governance, and, of course, education.
If Thomas' story isn't remarkable enough, his spirituality and passion for life against the backdrop of his early years certainly is. And so is his commitment to give back — to his village, his country and to CRS, which Thomas says "empowered me for life by offering me an education."
Tens of thousands of schoolchildren in Ghana have received meals through CRS-supported programs.
Thomas returns to his village regularly to visit family and teachers and to tell the children of Wiago how important it is for them to go to school. Thomas says that the schools he went to are still there, but have been completely refurbished thanks to CRS support.
Every year, Thomas travels across the United States to tell his story, to thank CRS donors for the gift of education and to promote solidarity between Catholics in the United States and the poor overseas. But what many people in the United States may not realize about Thomas is perhaps the most remarkable part of his story.
Thomas is one of millions.
CRS is a household name in countries like Ghana, where since 1958, hundreds of thousands of children have received a hot meal, an opportunity to attend school and food to bring home to their families. Chances are, if you grew up and went to school in Ghana, you benefited from a CRS school program.
The same is true in another West African country, Sierra Leone.
More Food for Thought — Baika's Story
At about the same time Thomas was being lured into school in Ghana, Baika Sesay was noticing the CRS logo on the sides of food aid delivery trucks outside of his school in Bo, Sierra Leone.
Unlike Thomas, Baika's family life was relatively secure. But thinking back to his school days, Baika says that if it had not been for the meals, which usually consisted of bulgur wheat and corn-soy blend, many children may have opted not to attend.
"Food kept the children in school instead of going out to sell goods along the street to make enough money to buy lunch," says Baika, who worked for CRS in Sierra Leone for 10 years before relocating to the agency's Baltimore headquarters in 2003.
Often, children were sent to school without breakfast, but once they were at school, they were assured a solid midday meal. "There were many, many kids who depended on that lunch," Baika adds.
One of seven children born to Muslim parents who were traders, Baika went on to receive his undergraduate degree from Njala University and started his career in the humanitarian sector during the height of the civil war in Sierra Leone, which raged from 1991 to 2001.
"The goal for me at the time was what I could do to help my people," he says.
Remaining in Bo, Baika first worked with a German nongovernmental organization helping to resettle displaced families returning home after the war. A year later, he joined CRS to work as a food aid monitor and relocated to the capital, Freetown.
During his tenure there, Baika met his wife and had two children.
As the war progressed, Baika and his family were forced to relocate to various provinces within the small country, sometimes by boat and other times by foot in the night. Through the chaos, he always found his way to a safe haven, where he could communicate with CRS officials on what the next strategy would be.
Baika served as deputy country representative of CRS in Sierra Leone before coming to headquarters, where he develops aid proposals for CRS initiatives in West and East Africa.
From his small office on the fourth floor, Baika's satisfaction with his experience at the agency is clear.
"With CRS you actually see the results of what you're doing," he says.
Around the world, CRS food-assisted development programs encourage over a million children to attend school by serving hot meals and providing food rations to the families of girls with high attendance. Depending on needs, these programs provide teacher training, curriculum development and PTA support to foster quality education. Programs may also offer school health services and physical improvements, including latrines, wells and additional classrooms.
Millions more vulnerable women, children and men receive other forms of food assistance or support to produce the food they need to help their families survive. Nearly all of these programs are funded through U.S. government programming and are affected by fiscal decisions of the United States.
In 2004, the United Nations reported that the number of chronically hungry people climbed to more than 850 million — the first time in nearly a decade that this number had increased. At the same time, world governments are decreasing the amount of money they are allocating to feed the hungry, diverting it to meet emergency needs.
Learn more about U.S. government spending on food aid.
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