Harvest Family Fast Day is on Friday 3rd October 2025. Find everything you need to support Family Fast Day in your parish right here.
Download your Harvest checklist
Waré is a mother to five children, living southern Ethiopia where she herds goats with her husband. Four years of severe drought has killed lots of their livestock and Waré had to get up at 5am every day and walk at least five hours to find water.
If the nearest water sources had dried up, she had to keep looking – a much longer day, walking up to ten hours to find water even when she was pregnant. Waré spoke about feeling so weak, she was worried that her children would be left without a mother.
"We have lost so much", Waré told us.
But there is a happy ending. With your gifts at Family Fast Day, CAFOD worked together with Waré and her community to build an underground water storage tank, able to support 300 families. Now, Waré has water just a 10 minute walk from her home.
Your parish's support this Family Fast Day will mean that more of our neighbours can get safe water for their families.
5 ways your parish can get involved this Harvest
1. Hold a Fast Day collection - Hand out our green Fast Day envelopes as people come into church and share CAFOD's Family Fast Day with your parish by putting up our Harvest poster and reading our short talk at Mass. You'll be amazed by the difference your parish can make!
2. Simple Food Fundraiser - Come together as a parish community for a simple food fundraiser - click here for recipes for soups, stews and curries. Or maybe you would prefer to organise a quiz night - click here to download our general knowledge quiz for your own CAFOD quiz night.
3. Make a Jubilee pledge - Share our newsletter announcement and invite parishioners to make a monthly donation and respond to Pope Leo's call to us to offer a sign of hope to the world this Jubilee Year.
4. Pray with us - sign up to receive our weekly Gospel reflections for ways to give, act and pray with us this Harvest.
New this Fast Day!
Try our new virtual envelope which allows you to make your Fast Day donation online and link it to your parish. Share the link cafod.org.uk/envelope in your parish newsletter or on social media so parishioners who no longer carry cash can still make their Fast Day donation.
We also have a new poster featuring a large QR code. Place them by entrances and exits to the church for parishioners to scan and they will be taken to the virtual envelope where they can make their Fast Day donation.
Fast Day resources for your parish
Visit the CAFOD shop to order posters, prayer cards and collection envelopes or you can download resources straight onto your computer below.
Fast Day resources to download
End of Mass announcement - Harvest 2025
Newsletter notice for parishes - Harvest 2025
Prayer of intercession - Harvest 2025
Parish poster - Harvest 2025
Parish poster - Welsh - Harvest 2025
Fast Day checklist for parishes - Harvest 2025
Food fundraiser poster - Family Fast Day - Harvest 2025
Contactless for CAFOD
Make donating as easy as tapping a card by signing up for a contactless account with CAFOD. Order a card reader device now or give it a try first with the new 'Tap to Pay' function. You can be set up in minutes and start collecting donations straight away using just your phone!
Find out more by visiting our contactless webpage or get in touch with us at contactless@cafod.org.uk for additional questions and support.
Other ways your parish can get involved
Food Fundraiser
Share a simple lunch with friends and give as you fast
Fundraise for a World Gift
See the difference your fundraising can make
Quiz night
Unleash your competitive streak with a quiz night
Our A-Z of fundraising ideas
There are so many ways to fundraise for real change
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Fundraising tools and advice
CAFOD online shop
Visit our online shop to order fundraising resources like posters, collection boxes and lanyards.
Sponsorship form
Download your form, complete your event and raise those funds for CAFOD!
How to fundraise for us
Follow our handy step-by-step guidance for planning, promoting and hosting your fundraising event.
How to pay in your fundraising
Advice on how to send us the donations you worked so hard to raise using our website, or by post, phone or bank transfer.
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Three ways to pay in your Fast Day collection
Pay in your parish's collection using our online form. Once you have entered your card details and submitted, you will be asked to input your parish details.
Send a signed cheque payable to 'CAFOD' to CAFOD, 55 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7JB.
Make sure to include your parish details and to mark it for 'Harvest Family Fast Day' so we can send you a proper thank you. Please include any Gift Aid declarations and direct debit forms. You can use the Freepost envelope provided in your Fast Day pack.
Please don't send cash in the post – we don’t want your vital donations to get lost!
Transfer your Family Fast Day collection to the account details below.
Account name: CAFOD
Account number: 11769410
Sort Code: 16-00-30
Bank: Royal Bank of Scotland
Please include your parish details as the payment reference and send an email to dpt@cafod.org.uk to confirm the amount, date of remittance and to mark it for Harvest Family Fast Day.
Don't forget Gift Aid!
If you pay in your collection by BACS transfer or via the CAFOD website, please don’t forget to send in Gift Aid declarations and direct debit forms by post to CAFOD, 55 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7JB.