about food for the hungry

Arizona has been home to Food for the Hungry since 1974, when our founder, Dr. Larry Ward, moved the organization from California to Scottsdale, a northeast suburb of Phoenix. In September 2003, when the Lord provided an entire campus about three times its former size for less than the price of the Scottsdale facility, Food for the Hungry saw it as an excellent stewardship opportunity and relocated to downtown Phoenix.

The campus on Washington Street allows our staff of more than 80 to serve right from Phoenix by raising funds, training mission teams to serve overseas and communicating the organization’s message of ending world hunger.

Facing Poverty Exhibit
Lining the campus hallways are photos -- hundreds of impoverished faces, raising the emotions of any who take a glimpse at Food for the Hungry’s “Facing Poverty‿ exhibit. Taken by our renowned photographer and advocate to a hungry world, Rodney Rascona, these photos portray just a few of the thousands of beneficiaries of Food for the Hungry programs throughout the more than 26 countries in which we work. Groups are welcome by invitation to tour our campus.

encouraging local ministries

Moving from Scottsdale to downtown Phoenix allows us to reach out from a culturally diverse neighborhood and strengthen our local ties with churches, leaders and families who are doing similar work for Christ, encouraging them to continue reaching out to various Phoenix communities, while Food for the Hungry reaches out to the world.

In fact, we are often asked why our organization does not reach out more to those in need in the United States. We are aware of the hunger and poverty in our country, but we are also aware that there exist thousands of national, state and local groups, from the federal governmental agencies to local nonprofit organizations, that have made it their mission to help homeless and hungry people across America and in their own communities. In Arizona alone, more than 20,000 nonprofit groups help Arizonans achieve a better life.

We are encouraging the work of like-minded ministries right in our own community. We assist the work with the homeless at both Church on the Street and First Institutional Baptist Church, the latter not 100 yards from our new building. We serve young people and reach out into families along with Neighborhood Ministries. The work of MADhouse Ministries (Making a Difference Ministries), a group that uses basketball to touch the lives of young people, is coordinated from buildings on our very campus. And employees from our organization have begun mentoring at-risk children through the MATES Ministry (Mentoring and Tutoring Elementary Students) at A.H. Shaw Jr. Elementary School right next door.

city initatives

In 2002, FHUS moved its headquarters from Scottsdale to downtown Phoenix to strategically be a blessing to the Valley and to more closely walk with key churches, leaders, and families. Positioning the organization at the intersection of 12th street and Washington to serve the community led to the creation of City Initiatives, an intentional effort by FHUS to put human and financial resources toward blessing the community in which we live. In 2005, the tsunami in Southeast Asia caused city leaders and FHUS leaders to ask the question: how can we address this problem together? The result was a partnership with the City of Phoenix to rebuild Meulaboh, Indonesia. Since then, City Initiatives has brought four sectors together to fight injustice and global poverty. These four sectors of society are as follows: business leaders, government leaders, educational leaders, and church leaders. City Initiatives remains poised to make sure FHUS is a light in the Valley of the Sun.

serving the world

We at Food for the Hungry feel God’s call on a larger scale. Poverty and hunger run unstopped throughout much of the world, jeopardizing the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the developing world. We believe God wants us to concentrate our work overseas, where much of the world’s poverty and hunger occurs, and where less help is available to meet these dire needs. We feel God wants us to help save some of the 24,000 people around the world who die every day from hunger and hunger-related causes. That’s eight million people a year, most of them less than five years old!

Nonetheless, we are in constant prayer for our home country, and that poverty and hunger will be diminished within our own borders. Our new location has brought us closer to many more opportunities to serve God here at home, and we have committed ourselves as an organization to walk through these new doors that God has opened.

country directory index

about food for the hungry

encouraging local ministries

city initatives

serving the world