Marjory Stoneman Douglas Anniversary FFTP, Parkland Raise Funds to Build Homes in Honduras to Honor Lives Lost

Boca Raton, FL – Food For The Poor and the City of Parkland are collaborating on a fundraiser to build 20 homes for families in Honduras to honor the victims of the tragedy three years ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The homes for the new Buenos Aires community will be built in Dulce Nombre, Copán, Honduras, a rural area located in hilly terrain about 100 miles southwest of San Pedro Sula.

Many families there do not have decent homes. Instead, they live in overcrowded conditions in dilapidated structures with dirt floors or rusty metal shacks held together by sticks and nails, without access to water and sanitation.

The fundraiser takes the place of an in-person service project held in years past.

With the COVID-19 pandemic preventing large gatherings, the charity and the city conceived the housing campaign as a good fit with the third-year community commemoration.

The city will host the MSD Community Commemoration at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 14 at Pine Trails Park, 10555 Trails End, Parkland. Physical distancing and face masks will be required. The event will be livestreamed and shown on the city’s social media channels.

“At a time when it’s difficult to physically come together, we are grateful to be able to collaborate on this fundraiser to provide our community the opportunity to virtually come together and make a difference in people’s lives,” said Todd DeAngelis, Parkland’s Director of Communications.

“Parkland and the larger MSD community have shown a tendency toward always helping others,” DeAngelis said. “We’re grateful for this chance to literally give people a home.”

Food For The Poor President/CEO Ed Raine said many employees of the charity have sons or daughters who attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas or know someone who was personally affected by the tragedy. Parkland is next door to the charity’s Coconut Creek headquarters.

“The anniversary of the shooting is always a very personal remembrance for us,” Raine said. “We are honored to work with the City of Parkland to help the community come together in a way that reminds us about the lives we lost while also helping the families in Honduras who desperately need a safe place to call home.”

Last year, FFTP partnered with Feed My Starving Children to incorporate a food-packing event into the MSD Community Commemoration to honor the lives lost. More than 600 volunteers packed 116,640 meals for starving families in Haiti.

Two years ago, a team from the charity was among dozens that packed more than 700,000 meals over two days on the first anniversary.

To learn more about how Food For The Poor and the City of Parkland are honoring the lives lost as a result of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas tragedy, please visit: www.foodforthepoor.org/msdhonduras.

To donate to the campaign, please visit: www.FoodForThePoor.org/msdcommunity.

Food For The Poor, one of the largest international relief and development organizations in the nation, does much more than feed millions of hungry children and families living in poverty primarily in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicine, educational materials, homes, support for orphaned and abandoned children, care for the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.