CRS Rice Bowls

Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowls will be available in churches beginning Saturday, February 3, 2024. Students in the F3 program will receive their Rice Bowls the previous Wednesday.

The CRS Rice Bowl program invites Catholics to live in solidarity with our poorest and most vulnerable brothers and sisters through the three Lenten pillars of praying, fasting, and almsgiving. When you give to CRS Rice Bowl, 75% of your donations supports CRS’s humanitarian relief programs in nearly 100 countries worldwide. The remaining 25% goes to hunger and poverty alleviation efforts here within the Archdiocese of Indianapolis as part of the Matthew 25: CRS Rice Bowl Grant.

Electronic or recurring donations are now available. Scan the QR code on the collection container. These items will be in pews February 3-4 and on courtesy tables after that weekend. Parishioners in long-term care centers have already received copies.

Rice bowls and old palm branches may be returned at all church entrances beginning Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024, through Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7. Blessed palms are a sacramental, and they need to be disposed of in a proper manner. It is our custom to take those blessed palms, burn them, and use them for the ashes that, next year, are sprinkled or traced on our heads as a reminder that we “are dust and to dust we shall return.”

For information about the CRS Rice Bowls, contact Sue Kloeck, chair of the Service and Outreach Commission.

updated February 2024