STEUBENVILLE, OH—The international charitable organization Mary’s Meals will receive the Franciscan University of Steubenville Poverello Medal at a special ceremony to be held on Sunday, September 20.

Mary’s Meals exemplifies the call of Christ to love the least among us as they feed more than one million needy children daily in impoverished countries. Founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow will accept the award on behalf of Mary’s Meals.

The Poverello Medal, which bears an image of St. Francis giving money to the poor, is Franciscan University’s highest non-academic award. It will be presented at a 7:00 p.m. ceremony in the upper level of Finnegan Fieldhouse. The public is invited; registration is not necessary. A dessert reception will follow.

“Mary’s Meals sets an example for us by following in the footsteps of St. Francis in acts of charity to the poor, the downtrodden, and those abandoned by society in some of the world’s most impoverished countries,” said Franciscan University president Father Sean O. Sheridan, TOR. “We are pleased to be awarding the Poverello Medal to such a worthy recipient.”

A native of Argyll, Scotland, MacFarlane-Barrow and his brother began collecting donations in 1992 in their parents’ shed to help people being tortured and forcibly displaced during the Bosnian conflict. MacFarlane-Barrow had no idea the appeal would soon compel him to quit his job as a fish farmer and found Mary’s Meals, inspired by a Malawi child’s hope to “have enough to eat and go to school one day.”

Today, more than one million children receive Mary’s Meals each school day in over 1,200 schools. The program reaches children in 12 countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

“The extraordinary ways in which all this has grown and developed have continually surprised me and filled me with a sense of mystery and awe,” MacFarlane-Barrow wrote in his 2015 book, The Shed That Fed A Million Children. In 2010, he was named a CNN Hero by the news organization. In 2014, he received the Advancement of Peace Award by Britain’s Ahmidiyya’s Muslim community, and in 2015, he was named one of Time Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential People.

Two Mary’s Meals kitchens in Malawi—St. Francis and St. Clare Kitchens—are sponsored by a Franciscan University club founded in 2010 by theology professor Dr. Andrew Minto. For one kitchen alone, the Franciscan students raise over $12,000 annually, while students in Franciscan University’s study-abroad program in Austria also fundraise for Mary’s Meals.

The Franciscan Mary’s Meals club recently helped students at Bishop John King Mussio Junior High School in Steubenville get involved with this cause. The Bishop Mussio students raised enough money this year to open their own kitchen at St. Dominic’s School in Liberia, Africa, which they named “Cynthia’s Kitchen” after Cynthia Phillipson, a classmate who fundraised for Mary’s Meals in 2014 and passed away unexpectedly last fall.

The Poverello Medal, cast in steel to signify simplicity and poverty, acknowledges organizations and individuals who follow in the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, “Il Poverello” (the little poor man), through strong Christian character, practical charity, and service to the poor. Past recipients include Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, and the Little Sisters of the Poor.

For more information on the Poverello Award Ceremony, please contact the Franciscan University Advancement Office at 800-783-6447 or email [email protected].