Beyond The Plate – A Podcast by Food For The Poor
Food isn't just delicious... it can also change your life! Tune into Beyond the Plate, a new podcast presented by International Charity: Food For The Poor. Get inspired with conversations that nourish the soul. Hear amazing stories of transformation from faith influencers, leaders in the nonprofit sector, and the individuals receiving aid in the 15 countries of Latin America that Food For The Poor serves.
Beyond The Plate – A Podcast by Food For The Poor
Ep. 25 - A Shy Teen Raised over $100K to Build Homes, but Why?
A cascade of small choices became a lifeline for families in Guatemala. James Ronaldo Meyer was raised in Wisconsin and he turned a childhood lesson about wasting water into a mission to build safe homes for families in Guatemala. From simple birthday gifts, school assemblies and a fundraiser to duct-taped his principal-- James’ story shows how local generosity can scale into lasting change. Along the way, we explore what it means to see Jesus in the poor and to trust that faith and persistence can open doors.
James took his first trip to Guatemala at age ten, seeing extreme poverty—leaking roofs and floors made of mud. Now he’s building homes with strong walls, solid doors, with dignity, and safety. He shares about the power of community groups like Rotary, Knights of Columbus, 4‑H, and parish families. Returning in 2023, James met Fidelia, who had lost her sight yet filled the room with thanks for a home that changed her days. He also honors his grandmother, Diane, whose memorial gifts now shelter another family.
James experienced major challenges to fundraising, but you’ll hear practical fundraising insights. Most of all, his adoption story that started this amazing journey of generosity. If you’ve ever wondered how your own circle could fund a home, this conversation will give you both the why and the how.
We celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month as we help keep the momentum going: visit foodforthepoor.org/together, subscribe for more stories, and share this episode with someone who loves turning small acts into big change... To donate and learn more;
www.foodforthepoor.org/together
“Sharing God’s Love in Guatemala” project - @sharinggodsloveinguatemala
Beyond The Plate is a podcast by international charity, Food For The Poor
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My birth mom, she gave me after an for adoption. I was given these opportunities to have an amazing, amazing life. Witnessing um these families making the most of what little they had, it felt like I had to do something because all these people they're human like me. Um they're from the same country as me. A home is supposed to be a place where they can feel safe. It felt like I owe that to many of these amazing families. Even though it seems like it's a massive task, there's so many, so many people willing to help make this dream a reality. If you just go for it and do it anyway, like Mother Teresa said, amazing things can happen, blessings can come from it.
SPEAKER_03:This is Food for the Poor, but we're not just food. We go beyond the plate to discuss a full range of development programs, all designed to break the cycle of poverty by empowering people with the tools and training they need to transform their lives for generations to come. These stories will inspire you, and best of all, you can be part of the change that takes place.
SPEAKER_01:Join us as we go beyond the plate.
SPEAKER_00:Hi. Um, so it all started when my mom walked into the bathroom, and I was just playing in the sink, overflowing the water, not taking into consideration that the water bill might go up from that, but it's alright. Um she walked in and it was like everywhere on the floor, the water, it was I was just making a mess. And um she told me not to waste the water, and I asked why. And she shared that in many places um people do not have access to water, and I asked, why can't we just give them water? And so after that, we had a speaker from Food for the Poor talk at our church around that time, um, talking about the water needs of people in places like Guatemala, and so it kind of all started off from there. Um for my for some of my first birthdays, um, instead of collecting pre presents, yeah, um, I asked for coins, and we would just have a big jar and we would cheer when it overflowed with coins because they would just bring in tons and tons of coins, and we purchased a water pump, we purchased chickens, piglets, goats, uh, and fruit trees. Um, and we had kept doing that until about COVID when it wasn't cool to have birthday parties anymore. Even though we even though they said they wanted to, uh, but it's all right.
SPEAKER_01:But but to raise all that money real quick, that's a lot of friends and a lot of coins and a lot of birthdays. So that's just to put that in perspective.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm looking at a photo that was sent to us, right? And this is a picture of you in our lobby. And you were, I get this for I guess you were about 10 years old, right? You're 19 now, so it's nine years ago. Um, and you're in front of the Jesus the beggar statue here at our headquarters, right in our lobby. I can't I mean, I can see it from where we're sitting here in our studio. What did that statue mean to you as a 10-year-old and having these object lessons from your parents and doing this beginning stages of fundraising before you took that very first trip to Guatemala?
SPEAKER_00:When uh we came to the Food for the Poor headquarters, um, when we came right into the doors, they stopped us right there. And this was one of the first things that we were able to see. And one of the first things that was very impactful during my mission trip the first time in 2016. Um when they explained that it was the face of Jesus, um, it's it's a statue, and it's a very popular statue because it's looks like it's a beggar from far away, or if you don't look at the face. Um, but when you do, it's the face of Jesus. And I think that it's just a very powerful, um it's just a very powerful message, even though it's a statue, but it shows that no matter like who the person is, no matter like what they look like, what like um like what opportunities they have, what opportunities they don't have. It's we should look at each other as if it was Jesus, um, because that's what we all deserve. And so this really kind of started to hit me home right away, just knowing that we're doing we're going on this mission trip and that all these people, they're human like me. Um, they're from the same country as me. And I was given these opportunities to have an amazing, amazing life in Wisconsin, and that I should make the most of this trip.
SPEAKER_01:And again, you're 10 years old, so let's let's let's do it again. This uh you're boarding a plane to Guatemala at a young age, and um you uh had spoken to us earlier about that, and you called it a brand new world. Of course, to you, it's something a little different from Wisconsin. And and what did that world look at like through your eyes? You know, you you the homes, the children, the smells.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, coming right into the airport, um, one visible, very like big different thing was is seeing a lot of people of like the same skin tone as myself. And just coming from rural Wisconsin, there's there is diversity, but there's not a whole lot. And so that was just an amazing thing to see.
SPEAKER_01:These are your grassroots. This is where where you were born. So did you start speaking uh to everybody right away as soon as you landed? No, I I am not very good at Spanish, but I just smiled and waved. The universal language, right? You just smile and you get a smile back, you don't need to speak. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_03:And now let's just uh give a little bit of a context, you know, and why Guatemala was first of all uh so important on this mission for you and your efforts to build homes. First of all, stats on Guatemala and Food for the Poor has built in 2025 alone, 20, just over 20 homes. And we're only about 75% of the year, right? Uh total homes built lifetime for this organization in Guatemala, just under 4,000 homes built. And we're talking about an average family size of five per home. That's more than 18,000 people in solid permanent dwellings. Safe, safe, secure, permanent dwellings. Guatemala's green, lush farmland, it's beautiful, but that beauty and that that countryside, very deceiving, very punishing poverty. More than 60% of these communities, and probably some areas a little higher than that, abject poverty. You know, and I remember one particular family, uh, this woman literally, this woman lives on the edge. Katarina and her two children were living just a few yards, uh not yards, but just a few minutes away from a local garbage dump. She had found a little spot on the edge of this cliff. I'm not kidding. On the edge of this cliff, and she found this this thatch, this hut she made with rotten wood, rusted metal, uh she had a basket where she things that she had collected from the garbage dump, and she lived on the edge of this cliff. It was dangerous. And I'm thinking these are two small age, elementary age children living on this uh edge of a cliff. Unsafe conditions, families getting water from polluted lakes, children when you you hear them cough when you go into their these homes because it gets very cold in Guatemala, you know that it's an indicator of something even more serious and why it's so important to do this and do this urgently. So my question, James, is when you were there in the and saw these homes, you know, what what did you feel was the need for change? I mean, what was it what was happening on the inside of you when you when you begin to see these homes and the conditions that these families were living in?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just witnessing um these families making the most of what little they had. Um there was holes in the roof, and I'm sure when it rained it probably leaked through. They had nets up, covering their beds just to keep the bugs away. Um and especially in Guatemala, they're a lot worse than than here. Um but it was just very eye-opening, and it felt like I had to do something because these families are they have so many children. No family should have to like sleep with floors that have mud in it, or sleep with roofs that can leak through. It's just like they should they should have a home that a home is supposed to be a place where they can feel safe, where they can feel secured. And I think that's what at the time it felt like I owed that to many of these amazing families.
SPEAKER_01:And and that's something you saw on the first one of your first trips, right? Is and is that some that moment that you you turn to mom or uh or you turn to the to the team and go, we need to do more. Give our audience some perspective on this. The number is staggering. I said it earlier in the episode here. You're as a teenager, you brought in$100,000 to build homes in Guatemala. And I think everyone's first question is, how? Yeah, how did you do that? Is this is this a a major lemonade stand? Did you have different lemonade stands around your neighborhood? I mean, walk us through this because is this something that you had to hit up your classmates at school uh on a constant, or you were just swinging by Rice Lake uh Country Club one time and said, you know what, I'm just gonna knock on this door, please. Uh talk about that engine.
SPEAKER_00:So there's been so many, so many um outputs for fundraising. So after coming back from the mission trip, my my aunt, she's a radio hostess, and the one morning she was supposed to meet with somebody, and he had actually canceled on her, and she needed somebody to fill in for her morning talk show. And she asked me to fill in and share my story that morning. And so that was just one of the many ways that it was able to get the story out. Another one is my grandpa is seen in a barbershop quartet in Wisconsin, and one of his close friends, who also does barbershop, he makes Chinese cuisine, and he also is the author of books, and he wanted to cook a meal for me and my family and share part of my story in a part of his book that he was writing, and that was just it was just an honor to get to meet him. Um other ways were at my school. What this was one of the one of the most like meaningful ones for Catholic Schools Week. What they do is the eighth grade class always picks a service project, a community service project. And normally it's like for the for um like the food cupboard in town or it's for getting like supplies to different things. But my class decided to choose this project. I presented to the elementary and middle school, and the prize of reaching the goal was getting to duct tape our principal to the wall. Um that was a very memorable way to fundraise. It was fundraised quickly. Yeah, it did. And we we met our goal. Um, one of the homes was dedicated to the the St. Joseph School. It was just amazing.
SPEAKER_01:How long did that take? Was that like a whole school year over a couple months before winter break? It would had to have been a like a month.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, that's fast. It really wasn't it was just such a blessing. Some of the fundraising was also I would present to like high schools, uh, private high school, um, private middle school, and then like the middle school and high school of public schools. Um and just share my story there. And I would also present to church groups after mass, or I would um we had a chili dinner one time and we had fundraising through baked goods. I also remember during the winter I snow shoveled for a person in one of our um Bible groups, and I put that towards um the fundraising thing, and it was just incredible. Just there's so many, so many people willing to help make this dream a reality. I also shared my story with my local 4-H club with the Knights of Columbus in Wisconsin in Rice Lake, and the Rice Lake Rotary Club that also funded many of the homes too. I also, more recently, um for um so I presented to a group after this these bikers decided to bike a very long distance. This was one of the stops that they did because it was for adoption awareness and me being adopted, um it's named Father Mullen's Adoption Initiative. He thought that it would be great for me to share my story. He's also one of the priests at my home parish in Wisconsin. Um, and so it's just to advocate for adoption, and I shared my story there as well. But there's just been so much message through word of mouth, through like through emails, through texts, just through like just through so much. It's been able to fundraise.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned about COVID earlier, and and uh COVID hits, everything stops. I mean, nobody can leave their house without you know uh having to be careful. And and fundraising is a little harder like that. You mentioned all everything you mention right now is person to person, being somewhere in front of a crowd and stuff. So then COVID hits and then what? It's uh one Zoom call every hour? Well, how how would you do it?
SPEAKER_00:So when COVID hit, it was already a busy time um because that was when I was transitioning from eighth grade to high school. So moving steps in education along with continuing this project and then another project, it was just it was very hard to like to keep moving forward at that time. And I remember it was just the communication made it really hard, especially because the emailing back and forth, especially with the people in Guatemala trying to get updates. It just it was just took so long, it just it was it was it took a lot of time, and so that was a big struggle. It was just communication. Being unable to um advocate and share the story in person was very hard because it was like a halt on everything. Um, and like it was just behind screens and just like it wasn't like we weren't talking in person, it was just a lot of online messaging, and it just it took a lot of time.
SPEAKER_03:James is giving us a master class on fundraising. I want everyone in our audience to realize and understand there is there is something for everyone to do in order to achieve your goal. Because I want to ask you about your you what you know how your faith guided you in on in this whole journey. All these open doors has to really renew your faith. What what how did your faith see this and guide you in this process?
SPEAKER_00:A lot of um this process with my faith, um, it was just kind of entrusting everything to God um and just knowing that He has a plan for all this and you know, all these like these opportunities, all these chances that like can never happen on our own. They had to be the work through the like they had to have been guided through the hands of Jesus. And it's just like once you really entrust everything and know that like this is gonna be for the greater glory of for you and it's gonna help others, it's just almost an assurance knowing that it's in good hands, not human hands, but in in the in the divine power.
SPEAKER_03:I wanna I wanna shift gears here for a moment because uh we we've kind of touched on it here and there. Guatemala adoption not your first time in Guatemala at 10 years old. Okay. So tell us why Guatemala and why this mission in Guatemala was so important to you.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna tell you a a story that my mom would always tell me uh before putting me to bed. Um so a long time ago, a mother she she loved her son very, very much, and she named him Baby Ronaldo, and she wanted him to have a better opportunity, and she wanted him to learn how to read. And so she gave um him up for adoption, and so his name is James Ronaldo Meyer, and he will bring God glory. So this story, so my my birth mom, she uh gave me up for adoption um in hopes that I would learn how to read and have a mother who would read to me because at the time she cannot provide some of these things, and so just knowing that she gave me this opportunity, because giving giving up a child for adoption is is a hard, a hard thing, and um just knowing that she gave me so much by making one choice that led to all of this is just giving back to a country that has given me so much because I've learned so much about myself. I've been able to meet so many amazing people, and I feel like it's what I owe back.
SPEAKER_01:James, this is a lot. I mean, just tracking back the story of your mom. I'm just I'm thinking about I'm a parent myself of two, and I have to give up my my kids. So and and the certainty of them having a future, the ones alike of yours, I mean, that that's a gamble on its own. And and the rewards now are are amazing. And I'm thinking about the the pressure. Like at one point, did you say, Man, I I can't do this anymore. That that three homes is enough. I have to do this again for a fourth one, or I don't have enough for the fourth one. I think I just should just stop now and and help out those three. If I am uh Were you ever thinking of, am I letting my mom down? Am I letting my family in Wisconsin down? And I I mean, did you ever want to give up in any of this process?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was a very shy child growing up. And so when I started giving these presentations, sometimes just like the anxiety would get to me and I would like break down in tears. Uh sometimes it felt like, you know, I can't do this. I I shouldn't be the one giving this speech. I'm not worthy of, you know, advocating this. And I think it was just kind of entrusting all those those thoughts, all like the opinions that weren't coming from me, just to give them up to God and just like trusting him, you know what, I'm gonna do this, and however it turns out, it's gonna turn out. And I always had my family there too to help me um throughout the later times, and just knowing that there's so many people that need to hear this story because sometimes people just need to have that extra lift in their life.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. That's right. Well, James, the the we heard a little bit of transformation in there, and uh what the dream that started when you were young and then started transforming when you were 10, and now you're a grown man in college, and and your story is now part of Food for the Poor's celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month. I mean, our theme this year is actually to honor, to inspire together, juntos.
SPEAKER_00:This is an amazing opportunity. Um it's getting this story out to more people than how I could before. And I'm hoping that it inspires others. You know, who knows, maybe there's another adopted kid out there, or there's there's somebody out there that feels called to do something by hearing this, because even though it seems like it's a hard, massive task, if you just go for it and do it anyway, like Mother Teresa said, to do it anyway, amazing things can happen, blessings can come from it. And it's this has just been such a blessing.
SPEAKER_03:So we fast forward, James, and you go back in 2023 to Guatemala. The I mean, now it's like a little bit larger group, it's family members on on this journey with you. And what were your impressions of the communities and the families that you met while you were there, especially the the some of the older folks that you had met, the the ones who were, you know, really couldn't care for themselves, uh, like the blind woman that you had met while you were there?
SPEAKER_02:All the families there, they're there for each other.
SPEAKER_00:Um I remember they were telling us that it's a very close-knit community. Um, because they if somebody like needs something, the other people will help provide something, whether because even though they don't have a lot, they're all they're so close. They care about each other and their families. Just witnessing the love they have for each other, for others, for kids that aren't their own. It's it's very much it's something you don't really see a lot. And I would not expect to see it in a place like Guatemala, but I did. And it's just incredible. When we went back in 2023, um, we were visiting the homes, and I met um, she was an elderly lady, um, and she was married to her husband who had passed between the time she and her husband had received the house before, and she our translator Monica, uh, she had just been telling us that how grateful she was for this home. Cause um, the lady, the elderly lady, she had gone blind, and even though she couldn't see us, um the words um spoke everything, and she was just telling how grateful she was. And just being able to hear that and just hearing how much like these homes have on these families in these communities, it just it tugs at your heart.
SPEAKER_01:James, uh Fidelia is that blind woman that you uh that touched your heart, and uh she sent us a very special message for you.
SPEAKER_04:Have some quedaban se terminó. Gracias al Señor que Dios permitió esta casita. Dios tomó tantísimo, Dios lo está haciendo mucho. Muchas gracias por todo lo que mamá ha hecho nosotros. Tengo mucho que agradecerle a Dios y a usted también. Viva a Dios que yo lo bendigo de quiera que anda, de quiera que esté.
SPEAKER_03:James, how does it make you feel seeing Fidelia again?
SPEAKER_00:Uh that was just very I'm I'm out of words to say anything. That was that meant so much to me.
SPEAKER_03:We are approaching our 14th home in your efforts. 13 homes have been built. We're just so close to reaching our 14th home, and there was one home in Palencia, Guatemala that was in loving memory of Diane K. Meyer. Tell us about Diane K. Meyer.
SPEAKER_00:Diane Meyer, uh, she she's my grandmother, and she um she loved hearing about this project, and this project meant so much to her as well. And when she had passed away um in March, she for her funeral during that year, she asked, instead of uh a lay of flowers, um, she asked for funds to be put towards um this project. And one of the homes uh was dedicated in her honor. And when we went back in March of 2023, which was just around the same time that she had passed away about years before, um, my grandpa was alone with us, and we got to see the home that was in memory of her. And it felt like she was like right there saying like it just felt like she was right there with us, and it meant a lot to my grandfather too.
SPEAKER_01:She's watching over that home as well. That family that's there, and she knows that she's there to provide smiles where there was once uh despair and and hope was very far, and it's because of you, James, and your efforts. And and now we invite you, uh the the audience to celebrate and and honor national Hispanic heritage, uh, even if it's different from your own, you know, by joining James and and let's close on that 14th home, okay? Now, this is not our limit and it's not our goal, um, but it's the next goal, yeah, right, for that 14th home. We need your help to do it. So simply go to foodforthepoor.org slash together. That's foodforthepoor.org slash together, and just click the link in the bio. And uh, James, before we go, um, we have one final message for you, and one that if it wasn't for your efforts, life would be a lot different. That's a rib crushing hug that she wants to give you, James. Look at this smile on Fernando's face, right? It's a smile, it's it's contagious, and that's what you're doing, James. And with the last words, James, tell our audience why uh this mission and these families matter so much.
SPEAKER_00:We we are all children of God, and we all are in one family. Um, and as brothers and sisters, we we owe it to not only others but ourselves to help lift others up. And it's just been amazing just seeing the blessings and miracles that have come from this.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks for listening. We hope you felt the connection.
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