For college students $119,000 can be a daunting amount of money to raise, but Breakaway Ministries’ Shalom Project is setting out to do just that.
The Shalom Project has three goals this year, all pointed toward providing relief for the people of Syria and South Sudan. This means supplying the basic necessities to 70 refugee families forced to resettle. The other two goals are to feed 70 families in South Sudan for six months and to make it possible for 70 South Sudanese women to have their babies safely.
Timothy Ateek, the executive director of Breakaway Ministries, said he is passionate about the project’s purpose.
these crises, and knew we couldn’t turn a blind eye to either of them.”
Brent Monague, production director, has seen the project expand to touch people from the Bryan-College Station area all the way to the Philippines. Monague said the Shalom Project combines the ability to fulfill tangible needs with faith.
 “We change lives for the better by providing physical needs. That’s a lot of what we do,” Monague said. “But the great thing is we always work with organizations that do that in the name of Jesus. The Shalom Project has gone out past Reed in the last few years. So far we have people from 10 different states donating. It starts in Reed, and it ripples out from there.”
Kayla Hudson, biology junior and regular attendee of Breakaway donated to last year’s Shalom Project. Hudson has been attending since her sophomore year and plans to donate again this year.
“I’m originally from New Orleans, so having someone to extend their home or even giving help when they can hits a soft spot for me,” Hudson said. “That’s why I feel like I took the effort to go back to the Shalom Project.”
The Shalom Project has been operating worldwide for 10 years now. There will be two more opportunities to donate to the project at Breakaway, which is held Tuesdays at 9 p.m. in Reed Arena. The directors of Breakaway urge anyone to participate, and students can do that through Spring Break at www.breakawayministries.org.
“It’s hard to make a difference by yourself. But together, we can be a pretty massive force for good in the world,” Ateek said.
“The word ‘shalom’ is the Hebrew word for peace, but it has a much deeper meaning than that. It points to wholeness, completeness, safety, soundness, prosperity, wellbeing. It is the completeness of a person,” Ateek said. “It was birthed out of a desire to see shalom invade the places in our society where there’s brokenness.”
Operations manager of Breakaway Rachel Hunt has been researching both the Syrian and South Sudanese crises for months. Hunt said Breakaway chose to donate to these particular causes because they felt the causes demanded attention.
“This year’s project really incorporates what we see as the two greatest humanitarian crises in the world today,” Hunt said. “We were looking at both