A Rice Bowl for All

By Dr. Carolyn Y. Woo

operation rice bowl 150x150 When I first heard about Operation Rice Bowl at my parish in America, I thought they were talking about something I knew so well from Chinese culture. I don’t have to tell you that the Chinese people eat a lot of rice—you have been to enough Chinese restaurants and seen enough Chinese landscapes with rice paddies to know that. But rice bowl was a term I heard all the time, and not just at mealtimes.

Growing up in Hong Kong, rice bowl indicated our overall well-being. If you say you have “a new rice bowl,” you have found a new job or started a new business. An “iron rice bowl” means your future prosperity is assured. A “solid rice bowl” is a good indication that you have a sure way to make a living. If you say, “My rice bowl is broken,” well, maybe you have fallen on hard times. And so on.

More Reductions to Programs that Help Children

Edward "Ned" Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, issued the following statement following the Governor’s State of the State Speech and his earlier release of the 2012-2013 Proposed Budget:

“In his State of the State speech Governor Brown said California is on the mend, yet his budget proposals continue to impact the poor disproportionately. And while a slow economic recovery prolongs the fiscal pain for most Californians, the Governor’s proposed 2012-13 budget continues a multi-year trend of reducing critical services for children, the elderly, the blind, the disabled and those most in need.

Budget Proposals Continue Reducing Programs that Support Children

Edward "Ned" Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, issued the following statement today following the Governor’s State of the State Speech and his earlier release of the 2012-2013 Proposed Budget:

Catholic Charities Creatively Continues its Mission in Era of Steep Budget Cuts

Serious times call for serious measures and, in the case of this year’s steep budget cuts to California state health and social service programs such as CalWORKs, Medi-Cal, Healthy Families and SSI, officials at Catholic Charities are taking proactive and innovative steps in meeting clients’ needs in a down economy.

“In all my years of working with Catholic Charities in nearly three decades, I have never seen a situation where the economy was this bad for this long and government spending is as deficit as it is all across the board: federal, state and county,” said Msgr. Gregory Cox, executive director of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, Inc.

“Our board of trustees made a strategic decision three years ago that we were going to maintain as best we could Catholic Charities’ level of service,” said Msgr. Cox. “The trustees decided to allocate all bequests received during the fiscal year to our poverty program instead of our reserve account.”

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