Updates from the field
More Than a Meal
Empowering Syria's Christian families throughout the holiday season
July 16, 2026 | by McKenzie Hood
For many Christian families across Syria, Christmas and Easter have become reminders of how much has been lost.
Years of conflict, economic collapse, rising food prices, and unemployment have left thousands of families struggling to afford even the most basic necessities. Elderly couples, widows, families caring for loved ones with disabilities, and households living on irregular income often face impossible choices between buying food, paying for medication, covering utility bills, or purchasing clean water.
Through the large food relief packages project, Shai Fund partnered with local churches to help ease that burden during two of the most sacred seasons of the Christian calendar.
Between December 2025 and April 2026, emergency Christmas and Easter food packages reached 3,067 vulnerable Christian families, providing essential support to 15,526 individuals across Syria.
A Family Facing Daily Challenges
Seventy-one-year-old Hagop and his wife, Mariam, have spent years navigating mounting hardships. Both require ongoing medication, while their daughter, Anahid, graduated with a degree in Archaeology and Tourism but has been unable to find stable employment. She takes temporary jobs whenever possible to help support the family.
Like many households in Syria, the family has also endured the region's prolonged water crisis. Since 2019, they have been forced to regularly purchase water, adding yet another expense to an already strained household budget.
As Easter approached, rising prices made it increasingly difficult to provide food for the family while also paying for medicine and other essential needs.
Before the Easter season, the family received an emergency food parcel through this project containing staples including rice, flour, beans, pasta, cooking oil, canned proteins, dairy products, sugar, tea, and other household essentials.
The assistance immediately eased the pressure on their household.
"With rising prices, medical expenses, and the cost of water, daily life has become increasingly difficult for our family," Hagop shared. "This assistance helped us during the Easter period and eased part of the pressure we face in meeting our household needs."
Creating Economic Opportunity
Shai Fund's food parcels allowed families to redirect scarce income toward medication, heating, utilities, education, and other urgent expenses. More importantly, they enabled parents, grandparents, and children to gather around shared meals, participate in church services, and celebrate Christmas and Easter with dignity rather than anxiety.
Delivering assistance through local churches also strengthened trusted community networks that continue to care for vulnerable families despite years of instability. Churches served as distribution centers and places of encouragement and hope during seasons that hold profound spiritual significance.
Standing with Syria's Christian Communities
For Christians who have endured years of conflict and economic hardship, remaining in their historic homeland requires both resilience and support.
By meeting urgent physical needs while reinforcing the strength of local churches, this project helped preserve dignity, strengthen community bonds, and remind vulnerable families that they have not been forgotten.
Shai Fund remains committed to standing alongside Syria's Christian communities as they continue to rebuild their lives.
