Transforming Lives—Giving the Gift of Hope

At Mary’s Meals, our vision is that every child should have enough to eat and deserves to receive an education. For just $25.20, we can provide a child with a daily meal in their place of education for an entire year, encouraging them to come to school, engage in their studies, and build a future filled with possibility. 

The generosity of our supporters helps us reach more than 2.4 million children across the globe with a nutritious daily meal at school. This Giving Tuesday, we invite you to join us in reaching even more hungry children—helping us to expand our reach to more schools and communities where children desperately need a nutritious meal.  

In this article, you can read stories of how Mary’s Meals is transforming the lives of children impacted by conflict and violence through giving them gift of hope. 

Improving Health 

In Haiti, widespread gang violence has escalated in recent months—forcing many schools to close, thousands of people to flee their homes, and rapidly increasing hunger.  

Under normal circumstances, we serve school meals to more than 175,000 children every school day through our local partners on the ground. In 68% of schools where our meals are usually served, feeding is still taking place. But the situation is volatile, and our partners are working tirelessly to ensure our program can continue where possible. 

Daniela attends a school where children continue to receive Mary’s Meals and wakes up eager to go to school each day. But she remembers a time when hunger-induced headaches would sometimes force her to “put her head down on her desk.” Things are different now that she receives a daily school meal. “When I have eaten, I feel ready to learn,” Daniela explains. “School is not difficult if you are full and focused!” 

Not only have Daniela's health and studies improved, but receiving Mary’s Meals has also helped to reduce her family’s financial worries.  

A Pillar of Hope  

In South Sudan, where we feed more than 81,000 children each day, the country is dealing with a humanitarian crisis marked by chronic food insecurity as hundreds of thousands continue to flee into the country from Sudan. 

Justine, a young girl from South Sudan, was forced to escape into the jungle when soldiers entered her village and started shooting at her family and neighbors. The soldiers persisted, closing in repeatedly, and each time Justine was forced to run deeper into the jungle. Eventually, the family found a remote place where they felt secure enough to build a shelter and create a water source for drinking and cooking. 

Mary’s Meals’ partner, the Mary Help Association, helped to establish essential services near their new home, including a school where children could learn and receive daily meals, which has become a pillar of hope for families displaced by the conflict in South Sudan.  

Justine now dreams of teaching other people to embrace peace as she and her family rebuild their lives. 

Bringing Children Back to the Classroom 

In Ethiopia, where we feed more than 110,000 children a day, Tigray is still recovering from a war that took 600,000 lives and left almost a million displaced. There is an ongoing drought meaning farming can’t resume at scale. 

Tsegay Mehari, head teacher of the Beati Akor Primary School in Tigray, talks about how the reintroduction of school meals after the war has brought students back into the classroom in significant numbers. 

"During the conflict, the feeding program was closed. Now that it has started back again, the number of students has highly increased. They have all come back because of the feeding program, [which] has a great impact on enrollment, but also on academic performance. The feeding program has other benefits, it helps the community too." 

Although there are still hundreds of thousands of children in Tigray struggling to get through long days without anything to eat due to ongoing drought, Mary Meals continues to provide hope. 

Triple Your Impact 

For every dollar you give on this year’s Giving Tuesday, our generous donor will match your donation with an additional two dollars—TRIPLING THE IMPACT OF YOUR GIFT! 

Your generous donation can provide hope to more children like Justine in South Sudan and Daniela from Haiti, and teachers like Tsegay in Ethiopia.