Homeless activists and food-giveaway ministries are planning to fight an ordinance passed by the Houston City Council last week that requires prior permission before any group or individual could distribute food to five or more people on public property.

The law is supported by the city's mayor, Annise Parker, and requires anyone who is giving away food to first get a permit from the owner of the public property where the distribution takes place.

The law will be effective July 1 and when implemented will impose a $500 fine, an amount that was lowered from the originally suggested $2,000 tag, to anyone in violation. Homeless activists from Texas have begun a petition to strike down the ordinance in the coming November election. more >>

A megachurch in Ohio has started a giving program in which on select Sundays it donates $1 to charity for every individual who attends a service on one of its campuses or online.

CedarCreek Church, a nondenominational congregation whose first campus was established in Perrysburg, began to initiate the giving program during the services done at Easter time.

Lee Powell, senior pastor at CedarCreek, told The Christian Post that his church got the idea from a church in the South that had done a similar donation by attendance program to benefit local charities. more >>

NEW YORK - Restore NYC, a faith-based nonprofit created in 2006 to help rebuild the lives of foreign-born survivors of sex trafficking in New York City, celebrated its third annual gala Tuesday night to raise funds for restoring freedom and hope to survivors of sex trafficking.

The Christian Post was on hand for the event, held at City Winery in downtown Manhattan, and spoke to volunteers, staff members, and other attendees about the importance of Restore NYC and its mission to assist survivors of one of the fastest growing transnational crimes on Earth.

Current Executive Director of Restore NYC Jimmy Lee began working with the organization in 2008 by volunteering as a board member. Lee had been working for several years on global health issues, particularly HIV/AIDS, and quickly realized that it was women and girls who are most affected by not only the disease – but injustice. more >>

Pastors and missionaries can work long and unusual hours while ministering to the needs of others, and they rarely have time for relaxation. That is why Celia Crie Perry, a 74-year-old woman who understands just how difficult it is to be a minister, created a vacation house in Rockland, Maine, where church leaders can get away from their work for a while.

"I've been involved in mission organizations so I was very aware of the need," Perry told The Christian Post on Monday. "And I have a lot of respect for different ministers and pastors and missionaries that I knew, and I saw that they often have a lonely life even though they're so involved with people every day. Nobody seemed to be ministering to them, they were doing all the ministering, and I just thought that it was a big need."

For that reason Perry created Crie Haven Ministries, a nonprofit organization that invites Christian leaders to stay in the Crie Haven House at an affordable rate so they can recharge their physical, spiritual and emotional batteries before returning home to minister to others. more >>

Correction Appended 

CANTON, Ohio – Dale Settle Jr. had a vision to take the business degree he was working toward at The University of Akron and use it to establish a ministry that would help people with both their physical and spiritual needs. He was killed by a gunman before he ever saw the ministry take form, but the vision he had is being carried on today by his father and step-mother and the foundation that now bears his name.

"The Dale Settle Jr. Foundation is not something that we came up with because Dale died. We were working on this before," Dale Settle Sr. told The Christian Post on Thursday. more >>

Over 4,000 children lose their lives daily due to drinking unsafe water, exposure to poor sanitation, and hygiene-related diseases (referred to as WASH conditions) and, according to World Vision, eight million children are expected to die this year due to diseases caused by such issues. That is why the organization is using World Water Day as an occasion to draw special attention to the plight of those struggling to survive without clean water.

Water, sanitation, and hygiene are the "foundation for development," according to Randy Strash, a Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Strategist and expert at World Vision. World Vision's Clean Water Fund is the main source of revenue for the organization in its work to bring relief to those in need of clean water.

"Water, sanitation and hygiene is absolutely critical for child and community well-being," Strash explained in a recent interview with The Christian Post. "If you don't have access to safe water, if you don't have good sanitation, if you don't have hygiene, all the other improvements are going to be like a band-aid on a major wound." more >>