WFP USA Lunch Money Challenge

When I visited Honduras almost a year and a half ago, I was struck at the poverty. I vividly remember as we were driving to our hotel seeing two young boys on the street corner. One was sleeping while the other appeared to be keeping watch...in the middle of the day. Heartbreaking.

Considering the violence, corruption and lack of democracy in this beautiful country, I felt less than hopeful. That was until I got to meet some of the amazing women's rights activists. I left the country knowing that there are many people fighting for a better future.

This is why I signed up to help promote the World Food Program USA's Lunch Money Challenge. WFP USA has a goal to raise enough money to fund 300,000 school meals in Kenya, Niger and Honduras. Today, an estimated 66 million students across the developing world will go to school hungry.

And these meals are not just shipped in from the USA to the "needy people" of the world, rather they are home-grown school meals that help to strengthen the community by using local ingredients that local farmers provide. This gives the money given and spent by WFP USA a double impact - farmers are supported and children receive meals they would not normally get. Many students in Honduras get school meals through the home-grown school feeding program, with 93% of the ingredients coming from local farmers and businesses, feeding minds and growing the local economy. This was a very important aspect of the program for me. I did not want to promote something that does not help the overall community.

So where do you fit in?

This week (Oct 14 - 18) instead of going out for lunch, pack a lunch. Figure out how much money you are saving and donate it to WFP USA. $50 provides one child lunch for a whole year! Maybe you are already taking lunch? Pick any amount to donate. If $50 helps for a whole year, that means lunch costs less than a dollar a week. Take $5 from your wallet and donate it! That's five weeks of lunches.

I hope you will consider brown-bagging lunch all week or even just one day.

Disclaimer: This post is part of a campaign with The Mission List and the World Food Program USA. All opinions are my own.