The #WorldHungerWednesday Initiative

About a year and a half ago, the Food Aid International team kick-started the #WorldHungerWednesday Initiative – a social media campaign aimed to raise awareness for the extent of world hunger.

Did you know that poor nutrition causes one in two deaths under the age of five?

Did you know that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone 2,500 calories every day?

Did you know that hunger takes more lives each year than AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis combined?

If so, consider yourself among the few. If not, then you’re already getting the gist of what the initiative’s aim is.

World hunger is an issue of colossal scale – most people recognize that it is a major issue in the world, but few understand the gravity of the problem and the destruction it causes to lives across the world every day. The children that spend days worrying about when their next meal is, the lives that are lost every day due to malnutrition – they’re so much more than numbers. But sometimes it takes numbers, facts, and statistics to help us in the western world wrap our heads around the reality of world hunger.

It’s hard to hear things like “66 million children worldwide attend school hungry,” without being compelled to help make a difference, and that’s our end goal: to educate the general populace about hunger to compel them to help be a part of the difference.

Being a part of the difference, though, doesn’t always mean a donation. It doesn’t always mean having your church or business or school group host a meal packaging event. Sometimes, all it takes to be a part of the difference is to click “like,” and to click “share.”

“This week, I witnessed what happens when the body of Christ sees not numbers, but souls!” exclaimed Grace, one of Mission of Hope’s HaitiOne staff members. Mission of Hope serves as Food Aid’s primary distribution partner in Haiti, a nation struck by desperation, poverty, and starvation. An orphanage not yet in the HaitiOne program had been visited the day before by the mobile medical team, and the team had presented Grace with some disturbing numbers.

63% of the children were in the bottom 5th percentile for height and weight.

14% were suffering from moderate to severe malnutrition.

The children were eating only 2 or 3 times a week.

Grace understands numbers. She operates in numbers. Every orphanage and school in the Haiti One program is assigned a Program Center Identification number. Every child measured has a corresponding Child Feeding Participant number. GPS coordinates, anthropometric measurements, “effective” enrollments (which dictate how much food is distributed each month), all numbers.  But on this visit, God took Grace out of the world of her numbers and revealed to her that behind each of those numbers is also a soul living in an orphanage. A soul that someday hopefully will have an assigned Program Center ID number.  Grace described her trip back to the orphanage the following day.

“Geraldine (a fellow staff member) and I joined the Mobile Medical team the very next day to visit the orphanage. The team did not return for medical reasons specifically.  Rather, the team returned simply out of love. I watched in awe as doctors, translators, North American staff, and two young children of North American doctors visiting for the week all just literally poured out love.  I saw zero concern for themselves from translators and drivers who knew that an extra trip would mean an extra long workday in what had already been an extra long week. I saw each person see a soul, and not a number, and it was beautiful.

I do not know what will happen, but I trust God’s sovereign plan. I am thankful for the reminder and for the opportunity to see ‘ordinary people,’ Haitians and Americans alike, display His love in extraordinary ways.”

Through partners like Food Aid International, the MOH nutrition program has provided over 15 million meals so far this year, feeding over 90,000 children per day through the HaitiOne network.  But over 83,000 children, like the children of this orphanage, are still on a waiting list to be served.  The need is great as evidenced above. Your partnership and support is reaching those numbers and changing them on a daily basis!  Thank you for being part of God’s plan to reach the souls behind the numbers.

A FBC Snellville fourth-grader was interviewed after helping pack over 30,000 meals at their VBS program. We compiled their thoughts and comments into a blog post from their perspective!

On Monday I did Food Aid at VBS, and I had lots of fun! At the beginning of it Mr. Chris went on stage and talked to us. He asked who had breakfast and I said I did, and so did everyone. Then he asked us all to shout out what we had, I said I had eggs but I don’t think he heard me because there were lots of us.

Then they showed a video about the Food Aid and about how important it is, and they showed a video that taught us how to pack meals. They gave us all hairnets, which was funny, but it was because they needed to make sure our hair didn’t get in the food, but they were hard for me to put on!

We all got into lines to package food, and I had lots of friends with me, and we had so much fun! On the line with my friends I got to weigh the bags to see how much they were, because they had to be specific. My table packed so many meals, like at least 100! (in reality, her table packed ten times this!) It was lots of fun, but we also learned a lot. We learned about how we need to help others, and helping others with Food Aid made me feel really good. It’s sad that tons of kids don’t have enough to eat. But it was nice to know we were helping them have food to eat.

Mr. Chris said that because of all the food that we packed, like 80 kids will have food to eat for a whole year! (85!) That’s a lot of kids! I had so much fun that after VBS was done they were still packaging so I came back to pack even more! I hope that we get to do Food Aid again next year, it was fun and taught me a lot. If I could say anything to the orphans that will get the food, I would say “I hope you enjoy your meals!”

Guest Post by Mission of Hope, Haiti

A good partnership fits like a hand in a leather glove. Mission of Hope Haiti and Food Aid International have been blessed with such a relationship.

For almost a year, Food Aid International has worked with Mission of Hope to package over 1 million meals for hungry children in Haiti. These meals are an answered prayer for thousands of mothers that struggle to provide food daily for their children. Not only does our partnership provide malnutrition-fighting meals to Haitian families and orphans living in poverty, it allows our partner churches in the US to join the fight against hunger and physically serve together to provide food for people that they are praying for and supporting. It is a beautiful picture of God’s church at work caring for the needs of others and fulfilling the commands of Jesus.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” Matthew 25:40

Dr. Chris Leader has been generous in his relationship with Mission Of Hope in providing valuable resources above and beyond meal packing. At food packing events and music festivals, Food Aid features fair trade merchandise, including beautiful handmade purses, clutches and head wraps sewn by Haitian men and women who are amputees or the parent of an amputee due to the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010. Food Aid also supports the Mission of Hope Child Sponsorship Program by making information cards for children who are in need of sponsorship available at events. Child sponsorship helps provide education and daily nutrition for the children in our orphanages.

A unique benefit of the partnership between Mission of Hope and Food Aid is the ability for teams traveling to Mission of Hope to purchase water filters from Food Aid for families in Haiti. These filters are then gifted to Haitian families; it is a beautiful sight to behold when a family knows they have safe drinking water! Together, Mission of Hope and Food Aid International are working to meet the nutritional and spiritual needs of the children in Haiti. This is certainly a partnership with an eternal perspective and one that Mission of Hope is so thankful for as we strive to bring life transformation to every man, woman and child in Haiti!

Food Aid International is excited to partner with AtlantaFest when it returns summer of 2016.

 The oldest and largest Christian music festival in the South is back – and better than ever! Celebrating its 30^th anniversary, AtlantaFest will feature a jaw-dropping lineup that is sure to make a splash in the Christian music industry! And here at Food Aid International, we are ecstatic – we have been blessed with the opportunity to serve as the festival’s humanitarian partner.

AtlantaFest is excited to raise awareness for arguably the world’s most pressing issue – malnutrition – and we’re excited partner with them on this effort! To maximize the impact both in the greater Atlanta area, as well as around the world, hunger awareness will be emphasized on all three days of the star-studded festival. AtlantaFest is also excited to actually host meal-packaging, and is planning to partner with our Haitian distribution arm, Mission of Hope Haiti.

Just two weeks ago, Food Aid International partnered with ResoundFest, another Christian music festival, in packing meals for Mission of Hope. The festival attendees packed over 10,000 meals; after seeing what a success it was, ResoundFest is excited to pack many more meals in upcoming years.

Food Aid International is excited to expand our festival partnerships, and we will keep you posted along the way!

Food Aid International launched its web-store – iHeartOrphans.org – almost two years ago. Since then, it has provided its customers with exclusive quality merchandise, and food for starving children around the world. Every item purchased through the site helps fund and deliver malnutrition-fighting meals to our overseas partners.

iHeartOrphans.org features exclusive Food Aid International t-shirts, including our “Hope for the Hungry”, “Love Africa”, “Love Haiti”, and “I Heart Orphans” shirts. With every t-shirt purchase, 40 meals are provided for hungry families. Not only are you supporting the funding of meals with your purchase, you’re also spreading awareness about the world hunger epidemic simply by wearing your shirt, on which the back reads, “This Shirt Fed 40 People.”

The web-store also features a variety of fair-trade, handcrafted purses made by women rescued from tent cities in Haiti. These cute, funky and trendy purses are available from two collections – Soleil and Zizi. We offer a number of accessory items, including clutches and head bands/wraps as well. All proceeds from our handcrafted purse and accessory collections provide meals for children in Haiti through Mission of Hope.

Food Aid International has provided thousands of meals to children around the world through iHeartOrphans.org. Head over and check it out today! Thank you for your partnership in providing Hope for the Hungry!

It was the largest volunteer base for a single event that food packaging had ever seen. Through twenty-six shifts across seven campuses in two different states, the Christ Fellowship Church (CFC) congregation came together with a common goal – to directly impact lives around the world; to provide hope for the hungry.

Over 15,000 individuals sacrificed their Sunday afternoons for the project, enthusiastically packing meal after meal until their goal was met. All of their hard work is now beginning to pay off, as their first team is now overseas to begin delivering the 292,000 meals that they had packaged.

Some of the meals have now been sent to New Life Children’s Home in Haiti, and others will be sent to remote villages throughout the continent of Africa. This week, a team from CFC flew to Haiti to begin delivering the meals to the New Life Children’s Home, an organization that provides full-time care for 130 boys and girls.

The children receive medical care, education, housing, and water, but the home had a need for more food. In an effort to help meet this need, CFC and Food Aid graciously took this opportunity to join their mission.

The CFC mission team has taken part in both the packing of the meals domestically, and now also the overseas delivery to the children themselves. They are excited with the opportunity they have been blessed with – not just taking meals, but taking hope to the hungry.

You too can join the mission of fighting world hunger. Everyone can be a part of the solution: young and old, rich and poor – there’s nobody that can’t join our effort. When people around the world are starving, we don’t have the luxury of time, and we don’t have the comfort of assuming someone else will feed these children. Children are starving, children are dying, and we can all join to combat this issue. Whether you’re part of a church or organization that would like to host an event; whether you’re an individual able to make a donation to Food Aid’s efforts; whether you’re someone who’s just looking to help us spread the word or share our mission, anyone and everyone has a role to play in putting an end to world hunger.

On April 25th, Nepal was hit with a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Just a mere 17 days later, people flooded the streets with shock and fear as yet another earthquake, this time at 7.4 Magnitude, struck the nation.

The results of these disasters are shocking, tragic and heartbreaking. The death toll has risen beyond 8,200 and over 17,000 people have been injured. The nation has received aid from around the world and close to 1 Million people have been provided with food assistance. But the need for help is still immense.

8.1 million people.

8.1 million people are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, and have yet to receive it.  8.1 million people are on the streets, searching for water to drink. 8.1 million people are hungry, simply desperate for a meal.

8.1 million people are in need of immediate help and relief.

When people are in need, and we can afford to help, how can we turn a blind eye to such tragedy and devastation?

Food Aid International has launched a new campaign – #Food4Nepal – specifically to provide humanitarian food relief for the earthquake victims. Through global partnerships and fundraising efforts, Food Aid has joined relief efforts to help meet the needs of the hungry people throughout the nation of Nepal. Aid is being provided for the country, but not nearly enough. Food Aid seeks to mobilize the masses and to empower you, to help those affected and to have an impact around the world.

How can you get involved? Well, there are three easy ways!

Partner through Donating
This is the most immediate way to provide relief. Every penny counts – or better yet, every quarter counts. It costs us just 25 cents to fund, package, and ship a meal overseas, and these meals aren’t just any meal. They offer all nine of the essential amino acids required for complete nutrition – something that can’t be said about other typical food-relief sources. Donations of any size are greatly appreciated and will help change the lives of those in need. Click here to donate to the #Food4Nepal Project.

Are you part of a community, organization, church, or business? This is a great opportunity for you and your family, friends, and colleagues! Once your organization decides to host an event, set a meal goal, an event date and determine what funds need to be raised – each meal costs just 25 cents.  Begin promoting our packaging event immediately and recruiting volunteers to help pack. That’s it – we’ll handle the rest! We will supply all ingredients and packing supplies the day of the event! Once the meals are packed, we will ship them to Nepal, where they will fill the stomachs of hungry people. Emailshoward@food-aid.org for more details on food-packaging events.

Partner through Sharing
Everyone can help, and chances are we all have friends and family that would love to provide relief for the Nepalese victims. We challenge you to make the#Food4Nepal graphic (seen above) your Facebook profile picture, and include a link to food-aid.org in the caption. Once you do so, tag three friends, and challenge them to do the same! Using social media, word of mouth, and any other forms of communication to help raise awareness will greatly benefit these efforts.

8.1 million people in Nepal are in need of humanitarian aid right now. What will you do to be part of the relief efforts?  Thank you for your partnership in helping us provide #Food4Nepal and joining the fight against hunger across the globe.

 Reaganne Coile, a junior at North Oconee High School near Athens, GA joins us today to share her experience fundraising and planning the 2^nd annual NOHS Rally Against Hunger. The NOHS FFA Chapter partners each year with Food Aid International to package meals and bring Hope to the Hungry in Georgia, and around the world.

Ronald Reagan said “We cannot help everyone, but everyone can help someone.” This is the exact purpose behind the NOHS Rally Against Hunger. We were three girls from Athens, Georgia who were passionate about fighting food insecurity both globally and in our community, but over the past two years, we (our community) have raised over $13,000 and packaged over 55,000 meals. If everyone did his or her part, global and local hunger could be almost, if not completely, conquered.

After learning that Georgia had the second highest food insecurity rates in the country, and participating in a Kids Against Hunger packaging event at the 2012 National FFA Convention, Senior Colleen Weynand, Junior Jacqueline Elder, and myself as a sophomore suggested to our advisor and officer team that we hold a similar event in our community. After doing our research, we found out that 103 kids in Oconee County-OUR Oconee County, seemingly the “wealthiest” county in Georgia, had no access to food afterschool, on the weekends, nor over the summer. After learning this, we were fully determined to make a food packaging event happen. After months and months of unsuccessfully trying to contact a similar humanitarian food-packaging organization, we spoke with a man at the Kids Against Hunger booth at the 2013 National Convention who gave us the contact information of Dr. Chris Leader, who was more than willing to help us reach our goals. We began fundraising and rallying volunteers, and on Saturday, March 14^th, 2014 we successfully held the first annual NOHS Rally Against Hunger through which $6,250 provided for 25,000 meals to be distributed in the Athens area.

After the success of the event and the effect it had on our community, we wanted to make our 2015 event even more impactful by adding an educational component. Two of our officers had attended the Washington Leadership Conference through FFA, and experienced a hunger simulation dinner. The purpose of such a dinner is to simulate the classes of the world by separating participants into three socioeconomic groups based on world statistics, and serving each class a different meal and providing a different experience. Participants of the NOHS hunger simulation dinner on Friday, March 6^th, 2015 said things such as, “I had no idea how many people were food insecure around me,” and, “I never thought an hour in a gym on Friday night captivated by high school students would be so impactful on me, I’m going to start planning my event as soon as I get home!” Many of the participants of the dinner returned the following day, met by over 300 more volunteers, to package over 31,000 meals funded by over $7,500 worth of donations from corporate sponsors and local partners. Plans are in the work now, two weeks after the 2015 event, for the 2016 event.

Although only a 17-year-old girl from Athens, GA, if I could give advice to anyone, I would say that while coordinating an event like this is time-consuming, the impact on the community and filling empty bellies with nutritious meals is worth your time – more worth your time than many things you might pursue. As laid out by Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth, it is our responsibility as more fortunate people to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves – this includes those who are food insecure. I would also tell someone, of any age or occupation, that you are going to run into dead ends. There are tons of people who cannot find it in their heart to give up the least amount of money, people who cannot give up a Friday night or get up early on a Saturday morning, and people who ask ignorant questions like, “A hunger simulation dinner? Like we pay $15 to come to a gym and not eat?” You CANNOT let these people tear your spirit down or stray you from your purpose. This year, we called over 300 businesses and around 30 or 40 supported our event. Keep pushing, keep contacting, and you will eventually find plenty of people who are willing to help you feed the community you all share. After we had lost sleep for months over funds, we ended up exceeding our goal by over $2,000. Donate your time, persevere when it looks like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and do not be afraid to ask for help.