Stop Hunger Now meals headed for Uganda

This is Jonathan Lambert, a sixth-grader in Uganda who is able to have more energy to study and focus because he receives meals from the Stop Hunger Now program. You may recall that on Martin Luther King Jr. day, for the second year in a row, the Heidelberg community came together for a service project to package meals for the organization. The MLK event is the premier service event on campus. This year, the event was titled Day of Service and Conversation.

About 100 people of all ages – including a number from the local community – packaged 10,352 meals, surpassing last year’s total. Each meal of rice, soy protein, dehydrated vegetables and a vitamin packet serves six people. Paul Stark, who ogranized the event, learned this week that the meals packaged in Seiberling Gymnasium have been shipped in a container totaling 285,120 meals from Stop Hunger Now's Indianapolis warehouse, bound for partnering organization LeSEA Global: Feed the Hungry – USA in Uganda. 

Jonathan Lambert is the grateful recipient of Stop Hunger Now meals. "I am really happy because sometimes this is the only meal I get for the whole day," he said. "My parents are not able to buy me food."

Jonathan is only one of the tens of thousands of children around the world who receive Stop Hunger Now meals at school. "By packaging meals with us, you have helped Jonathan grow and thrive. And because you shared your time with us, children have hope for their future, families can take a step out of poverty and communities can prosper," said Tracey Edwards, program manager for Stop Hunger Now in Indianapolis. "We truly appreciate your dedication and commitment to the vision of a world without hunger."

These meals will be distributed through LeSEA Global: Feed the Hungry's daily feeding program for impoverished children in seven schools throughout the greater Kampala area of Uganda. After Stop Hunger Now meals first started distributing meals in January 2011, enrollment soared from 650 to 2,014 children by the end of the year. Now LeSEA Global: Feed the Hungry reaches more than 15,000 children every day. Right now, the program in Uganda faces even greater needs as refugees from fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo make their way to Uganda. Feed the Hungry has committed to providing food and other basic needs – including clean water – to refugees in the Rwamwanja and Kiryandongo camps in western Uganda.

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