WHAT IS KIDS AGAINST HUNGER?
Every hour of every day 12 children per minute die of starvation or malnutrition related diseases. Kids Against Hunger is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to end that tragedy. Kids Against Hunger packages and ships highly nutritious, life-saving meals to starving and malnourished children in developing countries and the United States. We do this by mobilizing the energy and caring of American children, teens, and adults on behalf of hungry children around the world. Kids Against Hunger seeks to end the literal hunger of poor children receiving the meals, but also satisfies a hunger among prosperous Americans, a hunger for meaning and contribution.
HOW WAS KIDS AGAINST HUNGER STARTED?
The organization was founded in March 1999 by Richard Proudfit, a successful entrepreneur. In 1974 Richard volunteered on a medical mission to Honduras after Hurricane Fifi had ravaged that country. Profoundly affected by the starvation he saw among the children there, he made a decision to commit his life and financial resources to solving the enormous problem of world hunger. His life’s work became clear to him – feed these starving children.
Richard Proudfit enlisted leading executives at Cargill, Pillsbury, General Mills, and Archer Daniels Midland to formulate a food that would meet all the nutritional requirements of severely malnourished children for physical growth and mental development. The result was the creation of a balanced, high nutrition food that can reverse the starvation process, and restore a child’s health and mental alertness.
Click here to learn more about the food we package
WHAT TYPES OF PEOPLE VOLUNTEER TO PACKAGE FOOD?
While our name implies that children are the source of our volunteers, in practice our volunteers come from all age groups and walks of life. Individuals and groups from churches, synagogues, schools, social clubs, businesses, senior centers, and civic groups are common sources of volunteers for packaging our food. Children from the fifth grade on seem to have the best experience in packaging events. Teens require minimal adult supervision and often plan their own packaging events. Some of the best volunteer experiences come when children, parents, and grandparents work together as a family. Schools and corporations often do packaging with us as a community service event.
HOW DOES THE FOOD GET TO HUNGRY CHILDREN, AND HOW CAN YOU BE SURE IT GETS TO THEM?
We work closely with our distribution partners - churches, nonprofit organizations, and U.S. government agencies operating in poor countries - to distribute the meals prepared by our volunteers. We seek out organizations that have proven track records of successfully getting the food to the children and keeping it out of the hands of corrupt government officials and criminals. We always require our feeding partners to document how they distributed the food and provide us with pictures of the children who receive it.
WHERE DOES THE FOOD GO?
Kids Against Hunger has shipped food to over 40 countries so far. Below is just a partial list of the countries that have received our food:
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Afganistan Angola Bolivia Chile Dominican Republic El Salvador Eritrea Ethiopia Guatemala Haiti Honduras India Indonesia |
Kenya Liberia Malawi Mexico Mozambique Mongolia Nicaragua Nigeria North Korea Paraguay Peru Phillipines Russia |
Sierra Leone Sri Lanka Sudan Sumatra Tanzania Thailand Uganda Uruguay USA Venezuela Zimbabwe |
DO YOU REQUIRE THE CHILDREN YOU FEED TO BECOME CHRISTIANS, OR YOUR VOLUNTEERS TO BE CHRISTIANS?
No. Kids Against Hunger is a humanitarian organization. We have only one test to feed a child – 'is the child hungry?' We have only one test for accepting volunteers – ‘does the volunteer want to help feed hungry children?’ We require any organization that distributes our food to give the food freely out of love for the child without coercion or religious tests. To do otherwise would be a fundamental betrayal of our core beliefs.
HOW DO YOU RAISE THE MONEY FOR YOUR FOOD?
It costs Kids Against Hunger about 25¢ to buy the ingredients, packaging, and shipping for each meal. That means when we ship a cargo container (about 285,000 meals) to a country, that it costs Kids Against Hunger about $71,000. As a nonprofit organization we raise all our funds from the generosity of individual donors, corporations, churches, synagogues, and foundations. Put simply, the more money we receive from donors, the more children we can feed.
IS MY DONATION TO KIDS AGAINST HUNGER TAX DEDUCTIBLE?
Yes. Kids Against Hunger is a 501(c)(3) organization and is approved by the IRS for tax deductible donations
Kids Against Hunger Coalition of Michigan is one of the many satellites working to fight the global hunger problem. KAHM has set forth the following goals in order to help aid in the fight:
- To produce a minimum of 12 KAHM food producing satellites in Michigan by June, 2016.
- To spearhead community and youth volunteer involvement, at each satellite location, in the packaging of our highly nutritional food.
- To package and ship a minimum of 500,000 KAHM meals annually, from each satellite location, to malnourished and starving children around the world.
- To save lives.
- To promote awareness of world hunger and malnutrition, and participate in finding cost effective solutions.
- Partnering with community service organizations, schools, Faith based groups, etc., to ship KAHM food to desired destinations worldwide.
Visit The Blog for the Latest News on all Kids Against Hunger Satellites in the Coalition of Michigan Network!
