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Caring for the Poor and Needy
Fast Offerings
Fast offerings are voluntary contributions given to the Church to enable bishops to provide food, clothing, medical care, and other forms of relief to those in need. Members of the Church are encouraged to go without food and drink for two consecutive meals on one Sunday each month and contribute a generous offering for the poor. Those who have little to share can give the value of the food they would have eaten. Those who are in a position to do so should be very generous and give much more than the value of two meals. Fast offerings are one of the most important ways in which Latter-day Saints care for those in need.
"Sometimes we have been a bit penurious and figured that we had for breakfast one egg and that cost so many cents and then we give that to the Lord. I think that when we are affluent, as many of us are, that we ought to be very, very generous. I think we should . . . give, instead of the amount saved by our two meals of fasting perhaps much, much more—ten times more when we are in a position to do it" (Spencer W. Kimball, "The Vision of Self Help," Welfare Services Meeting, 6 Apr. 1974, 11–13).
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