One of the most important and tangible ways in which the foundation helps its children is through the provision of food. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to express just how important the food is to the children. As Americans, especially middle and upper class Americans, it is very difficult for us to really internalize or truly comprehend that there are kids who just don’t eat most days. I have been living in the third world for most of the last 5 years and working at the foundation with extremely poor children for over 2 ½ years. I am still a bit surprised when I show up at a kids house on the weekend and find them crying because their stomach hurts and there isn’t any money to buy food. Just last week I went to one of the children’s houses, whose family is actually one of the best off, and found the youngest girl crying because she was hungry, while her mother was telling her to go to sleep, the children’s general treatment for hunger pangs. In this update I am going to use some stats, pictures and stories to try and help you understand and internalize just how important the food is that we give our children.
Let’s start with some stats. We spend 65% of our annual budget on food. Every day the foundation serves 215 plates of food to about 100 children. We cook 48 pounds of rice, 6 pounds of beans and 50 pounds of chicken daily. The average child will eat 2.3 plates of food. The children very rarely eat any kind of meat at home and when they do eat meat it is usually low quality salami. They will eat at least 10 plates of food with chicken a week at the foundation.
Attached are pictures of a few of our poorer children and bigger eaters. Each child has placed in front of them the amount they will eat on a typical foundation day. This is not the least bit exaggerated. They will not eat all of this in one sitting, they will eat it between 11:30 and 3, at which point the food usually runs out. They eat this much while at the foundation because they most likely did not eat anything for breakfast and probably won’t get anything for dinner, but if they do get something it will be small. One of these children is Fanel, who was actually enrolled in the foundation after we found him eating the “waste” or food that was left on plates that we put out front for street dogs.
I have also attached pictures of a child with his huge swollen belly when he got to the foundation and his belly now, after being in the foundation for about a year and a half. His name is Yuben aka “The Hulk” and he is a sweet, intelligent, fearless, tough as nails, young boy who has made leaps and bounds nutritionally, emotionally and educationally while at the foundation.
When the foundation first started we had a lot of starving kids who were not used to being able to eat until they were full. I will never forget one of those first days someone had spilled a small amount of rice on the floor, Miguelito, Luisito and Yunior, three of our most starving children, were huddled around the rice picking the individual grains off the floor and eating them. There was more food to be had but they were so used to being hungry that the thought of wasting any food, regardless of whether or not it was on the floor, was incomprehensible to them. I had some great pictures of their comically huge swollen bellies but they were lost when my computer was stolen a few years ago.
It is also worth noting that we waste no food whatsoever. We have several children who eat chicken bones, so even a cleaned bone doesn’t go to waste. The small amounts of rice that are left on plates are put into a bucket. Some of the kids bring bags to the foundation and they will take the food from this bucket home to their dogs (street dogs that live by their house). If at the end of the day there is any scrap food left we will put it out front for the local street dogs to eat.
As always thank you all for your support, none of this would be possible without you.
